Summary

  • ReuNION is a planned link to South Africa, with service targeted for 2028. Its sixteen fibre pairs are a design and allocation plan, not capacity already carrying customers.
  • Public terrestrial service catalogues already exist. What the project announcements do not establish is a complete ReuNION-specific offer from the cable to an outside operator's network.

A space just 600 millimetres by 600 millimetres costs €7,500 a year in Réunion's published GAZELLE hosting catalogue. It comes with 1 kW of power, an initial access charge and a feasibility assessment. This is not a quotation for the island's proposed new submarine cable. It is a useful place to begin asking what it costs to use one.

ReuNION, the proposed connection between Réunion and South Africa, makes that distinction worth examining. Orange's announcement of 2 September 2026 describes sixteen fibre pairs, each designed for 20 Tbps. It also gives Orange the island's landing-party role: permits, civil works, a secure station and interconnection with terrestrial networks. Orange says the infrastructure will be accessible to all operators.

An operator needs to get from that shared promise to its own network. The land connection may look short beside an ocean crossing, but equipment space, power and onward transport are separate things to buy.

The price list that was already there

Réunion is not waiting for its first published access offer. La Réunion Connectée's service catalogue page lists dark fibre, Ethernet links, equipment hosting and ducts on GAZELLE, alongside separate FTTH contracts. The network serves operators and closed user groups; businesses can obtain services through an operator.

The linked non-contractual catalogue supplies the details: the hosting space's access charge is €750, and both that and the annual price exclude VAT. A 1 Gbps point-to-point Ethernet link is listed at €7,200 a year before VAT, with separate site-access charges. These prices describe existing terrestrial services. They make the shopping list tangible without settling a future ReuNION bill.

The distinction changes the story. The question is not whether the island has any public terms. It is how the future cable's terms will join up with the services a buyer needs on land. Orange's general subsea-capacity offer itself distinguishes station-to-station capacity from optional backhaul to another point of presence or a customer site.

Sixteen pairs, several decisions

The project promoter allocates twelve pairs to La Réunion Connectée, two to Orange and one each to Telco OI and Reunicable. For the latter two, the plan names a share of the new cable. An operator outside those four names has a different starting point: Orange's promise of access, rather than an allocation in the announcement. Neither position tells us the price or scope of the eventual wholesale service. The allocation alone does not establish ownership percentages or exclusion.

The promoter's €93.1 million financing plan combines €30 million from the European Regional Development Fund, €20 million from the Connecting Europe Facility, €6.5 million from the French state and €36.6 million from the consortium. The European Commission's project record identifies the €20 million EU contribution and a project period ending in November 2028.

The promoter schedules studies in 2026, manufacture, laying and station work in 2027, then operation in 2028. Orange Marine is to deploy the cable, with Alcatel Submarine Networks responsible for design and manufacture. A later connection towards Singapore remains a separate ambition.

That leaves two rather different measures of progress. The construction timetable counts studies, cable and stations. An operator's timetable ends when it can order a connection into its own network, with a price and a restoration commitment. The reviewed announcements do not yet establish that complete offer for outside buyers; they do not establish that no separate agreement exists, either.

For Réunion, the gain would be more than a larger number of terabits. It would be another usable way off an island whose operators must buy both sea and land connectivity. The GAZELLE catalogue shows that the land side already has products and prices. ReuNION's commercial test is how they fit together: whether a buyer can turn the promised open cable into a complete alternative, rather than simply own a faster route to another bill.

Updated 25 October 2026: this article now includes the existing GAZELLE catalogue and distinguishes those terrestrial offers from ReuNION-specific access arrangements. Planned capacity and funding are not presented as an operating service.