Alcatel-Lucent to Upgrade Asia America Gateway Submarine Cable

Alcatel-Lucent to Upgrade Asia America Gateway Submarine Cable

Alcatel-Lucent and Asia America Gateway, the cable system owned by a consortium of operators, have reaffirmed their cooperation with the signature of a contract to upgrade the Asia America Gateway (AAG) submarine cable system, covering the route from Philippines to the United States.

By leveraging Alcatel-Lucent’s advanced coherent technology, the 20,000km-long AAG system will add multi-terabit data capacity to cope with the rapid expansion of data traffic in countries along its route, while rapidly increasing its capability to meet cloud service requirements.

Spanning almost half the length of the Equator, AAG connects Malaysia to the US via Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii and the US west coast. When it was launched in 2009, the Asia-America Gateway represented a breakthrough in delivering the first terabit submarine cable network between south-east Asia and the US, being designed for an ultimate capacity of 1.92 terabit-per-second (Tbit/s). The advanced coherent technology to be used for this upgrade will deliver a capability to upgrade the system to over 8 Tbit/s and will contribute to further strengthen communications reliability over the Asia-US route.

Mr. Vito Pavone, Chairman of the AAG Management Committee said: “This new investment in additional capacity on the AAG system will further help to address the persistent demand for anywhere, anytime broadband access. Alcatel-Lucent’s technology offers an adaptable solution to continue implementing our staged upgrade strategy to meet significant bandwidth increments over time, while protecting our investments in the subsea plant.”

Philippe Dumont, President of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, said: “We are pleased to help AAG operators allow quicker service acceleration to meet the expectations of their customers for high-quality broadband applications, storage and computing. Alcatel-Lucent’s unique solution delivers an easy means of scaling up to multi-terabit capacity, offering evolution for submarine line terminal equipment while combining technological and economic benefits.”

Press Release, September 27, 2013