The Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) consortium has announced the launch of the 8,100km cable system linking Southeast Asia with the Middle East.
The 100Gbps BBG cable connects Malaysia with Oman, with landing points in India, Sri Lanka and the UAE.
Consortium members include India's Reliance Jio Infocomm, Malaysia's Dialog Axiata, Telekom Malaysia, Vodafone, the UAE's Etisalat and Omantel.
Hong Kong-based PCCW Global has meanwhile announced it has signed an agreement with operators in MEA to build a subsea cable system connecting Africa with the Middle East and South Central Asia.
Under the proposed agreement, PCCW will form a consortium with South Africa-based MTN, Saudi Telecom Company, Telecom Egypt and Telkom South Africa to build the new Africa-1 cable.
Africa-1 will have an at least three fiber pair core that spans more than 12,000km across Africa's east coast, with up to an additional 5,000km for branches.
The operators plan to sign a construction and maintenance agreement for the cable by June this year, and aim to have the cable ready for service by the third quarter of 2017.
Finally, Huawei Marine Networks revealed it has achieved a record transmission distance of up to 627km with a 100G ultra-long unrepreatered system during a laboratory test in Beijing.
The cable configuration, which uses Huawei 100G technology, could potentially help cut down on the cost of subsea cable networks by reducing the need to install and maintain repeatered systems, the company said.