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Cable Technology Feature Article

October 17, 2008

Alcatel-Lucent to Help EASSy Double Capacity

By Divya Narain, TMCnet Contributor


Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) has signed a contract with the East Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) consortium to increase, by twofold, the design capacity of the optical submarine cable network landing in East Africa.
Alcatel-Lucent's submarine and terrestrial optical solutions will allow EASSy to deliver a regional capacity of 1.4 Terabit/s. This would be the highest capacity in the region and would in turn satisfy broadband needs for several years.
The connectivity offered by the EASSy submarine cable network support local traffic from both traditional and new broadband services across the continent. The network will also be interconnected to other submarine cable systems to the North and South offering an international gateway important for the economic development of the region and for promoting computer usage.
The EASSy submarine network will connect eight countries from Sudan to South Africa, via Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar and Mozambique and will cover nearly 10,000 km. Landings will be located in Port Sudan (Sudan), Djibouti (Djibouti), Mogadishu (Somalia) Mombasa (Kenya), Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania), Toliary (Madagascar), Maputo (Mozambique) and Mtunzini (South Africa).
The EASSy submarine cable system will also serve as a supporting infrastructure to existing cables and other submarine systems currently under construction.
"This increase in final system capacity is another important step in the development of the African communication infrastructure, where there is a very strong need for affordable capacity," said Trevor Martins, MTN (News - Alert) International, Chairperson of the EASSy Management Committee. "Alcatel-Lucent further proves itself as a trusted partner for its turnkey expertise and cooperation on accommodating the design change without impact on the final delivery date."
EASSy is a project set up by 25 licensed telecommunications operators in the Eastern and Southern African region and international carriers.
"The upgrade to the submerged equipment will enable the EASSy consortium to support the enhanced capacity required to meet the new bandwidth requirements emerged in the past year," said Etienne Lafougère, President of Alcatel-Lucent's submarine network activity. "This design change reflects our capacity to capture our customer's requirements and to provide tailored solutions that can easily evolve over time as needed."
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Divya Narain is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Divya's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Stefania Viscusi