The EASSy subsea cable stretches 10,000km from South Africa to Sudan, and Alcatel’s 100G technology is expected to enable the infrastructure to carry more than 10Tbps of capacity.
Chris Wood, chairman of the EASSy management committee, said that since the cable’s commercial launch in 2010, there has been enormous growth in demand for capacity on the system.
“This upgrade will add an additional 400Gbps of capacity throughout the system using Alcatel-Lucent’s advanced coherent 100Gbps technology and enables us to take further steps in offering our customers the ultra-broadband capacity needed for innovative services and applications,” Wood said.
Owned and operated by 17 African and international shareholders, the EASSy cable links eight African countries, as well as providing connectivity to Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia, via interconnection agreements.
The upgrade is expected to boost ultra-broadband capacity in Africa, as well as strengthen its onward connectivity to other regions across the globe.
“With staged upgrades until now, this latest upgrade using our 100Gbps technology confirms Alcatel-Lucent as the leading innovation partner to address evolving connectivity needs over time, while meeting the low-latency and resilience requirements that our customers demand,” said Philippe Dumont, president of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks.
In December last year, Alcatel-Lucent and Nextgen completed a successful 400Gbps data transmission field trial in Australia.
