Orange Group has announced its intention to reinforce its presence on the Asia-Europe network route by signing a construction and maintenance agreement for the SEA-ME-WE 5 submarine cable. In its planned configuration, SEA-ME-WE5 will connect Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy and France. The international consortium of backers, of which Orange is now a member, plans to inaugurate the 20,000km-long cable by the end of 2016. Orange notes that, thanks to the inter-connection point in Djibouti, it can open up a new route towards the Indian Ocean with a view to supporting the broadband boom in the French overseas territories of Reunion and Mayotte. Earlier this week Orange signed a ‘strategic’ deal, which will see its local unit in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Orange DRC, manage the country’s recently deployed fibre-optic backbone, as well as the controversial landing station in Muanda. Days later, the French telco also announced that it had launched a large-capacity IP Point of Presence (PoP) in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. The Ivorian port city was selected to house the infrastructure because it already acts as a landing point for the 17,000km African Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable.