Hong Kong telecommunications provider PCCW Global has chosen an African data center to help further colocation and undersea fibre networks in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

The company says that the Dijbouti Data Center has been built to Tier III standards, and also serves as a major connecting point for cable systems including the Asia-Africa-Europe-1 (AAE-1) submarine cable.

The AAE-1 cable will connect Dijbouti with Asian countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, India and Pakistan, as well as countries in the Middle East and Europe.

“The DDC is an important element of our wider pan-African development and expansion plans. The addition of AAE-1 to PCCW Global's existing undersea fiber cable assets in the region will enable us to provide even more robust services, along with lower latency and increased diversity, boosting services levels for our customers," says Jordick Wong, PCCW Globa's senior vice president, product and vendor management.

Wong says the cable will be around 25,000 kilometres long, use 100Gbps technology and have a capacity of more than 40 terabits. This will be used to provide low-latency and direct connectivity to customers around the world.

PCCW is a founder consortium member of the AAE-1, which is expected to come into action by early 2017.

“The addition of AAE-1 cable system further establishes DDC as the leading carrier neutral data center hub in East Africa serving global and regional Telco's, MNOs, ISPs, and CDN providers. We are very pleased that PCCW Global will be joining the DDC ecosystem, as it further enables the development and introduction of new services that will help drive economic and social well-being in the region," adds Anthony Voscarides, Dijbouti Data Center CEO.