This will make Dunant the first in-service subsea cable to feature a 12 fibre-pair SDM design, delivering a ‘record-breaking’ capacity of 250Tbps across the Atlantic. The news will also make SubCom first to market with HFC, power-efficient and capacity-optimised cable systems, using the company’s SDM technology.
In addition, SubCom repeaters incorporate SDM technology with a HFC solution that uses a pump sharing amplifier architecture for increased system reliability and optimised cost-effective capacity. This flexible architecture allows every amplifier to be supported by a combination of pump lasers, providing maximum overall capacity across 12FP, 16FP and 24FP trunk and branch segments.
“We’re proud to consistently provide our customers with robust, future-proofed products that enable cable systems to operate at their peak performance over many years,” said David Coughlan, CEO of SubCom. “Our customers have peace of mind knowing that our strong optical and marine engineering offer them the best value for their investment. Getting the wet plant right and having the best products, installation and maintenance technology is the key to ensuring long-term, successful operation.”
Additionally, SubCom’s Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS) ROADM technology is now in production. WSS filter technology supports fully-flexible, reconfigurable routing of the optical spectrum on each fibre pair. This flexibility allows customers to dynamically reassign the optical spectrum between trunk and branches throughout the system’s life to achieve maximum value. Further flexibility is achieved using SubCom’s enhanced branching units (eBU) for optical path switching on up to 24FP branches.
According to the company, SubCom currently holds the record of the lowest average fibre optic cable fault rate in the industry. Telxius’ MAREA cable,for example, which came into service in 2018 and was delivered by SubCom, achieved record-breaking data transfer speeds of 26.2 terabit per second per fibre pair, which is 20% higher than the initial cable design.
