Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) today said that it has signed a new contract to deploy the Atlantic-Mediterranean segment of the 9,000-mile Europe India Gateway submarine cable system.

 

Touted to be the first direct, high-bandwidth optical-fiber submarine cable system from the United Kingdom to India, EIG is expected to “significantly” enhance capacity and diversity between the countries and territories of three continents.

 

EIG is expected deliver a capacity of up to 3.84 terabits per second to provide upgradeable transmission facilities that support Internet, e-commerce, video, data and voice services. The completion of this project is scheduled in the second quarter of 2010, according to the companies.

 

Alcatel-Lucent officials said that their company will provide complete turnkey work for its portion of the EIG system, which is the Atlantic-Mediterranean submarine segment, spanning 7,100 km. The company is responsible for the design, manufacture, installation, and commissioning of this segment.

 

Moreover, the company plans to use the 1678 Metro Core Connect, and deploy its latest generation 1626 Light Manager dense wavelength division multiplexing transmission equipment to provide connectivity across the two terrestrial links in the United Kingdom and Egypt at 40Gbit/s.

 

Officials pointed out that the Alcatel-Lucent offering across the EIG system provides terabit transmission capabilities to “accelerate” the delivery of broadband services and applications.

 

“Alcatel-Lucent’s turnkey expertise and technological lead in the build of submarine networks will help us deliver a highly flexible and scalable infrastructure that will support the delivery of innovative applications across the regions,” said John Russell, chairman of the EIG Consortium Management Committee.

 

Etienne Lafougere, president of submarine network activity at Alcatel-Lucent, said that this new contract is recognition of the reliability of the submarine, terrestrial and network solutions, as well as of the end-to-end ability to provide every part of a global transport network.

 

EIG was announced in May 2008 in London by the EIG Consortium. EIG is expected to connect three continents, with landings planned in the United Kingdom, Portugal, Gibraltar, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and India.