Alcatel-Lucent Upgrades Apollo Subsea Cable System

Alcatel-Lucent has completed an upgrade of the Apollo undersea cable system which links the UK and France to the United States.

This multiple 100 gigabit per second (Gbit/s) upgrade enhances the system’s capacity in support of the continued global explosion of data traffic and increased demand for capacity-hungry applications such as cloud computing and on-demand video services.

The Apollo system consists of two of the most advanced fiber optic cables: Apollo North connects the UK to the US, and Apollo South connects France directly to the US, collectively spanning a total of 13,000 km.

The upgrade is built on Alcatel-Lucent‘s latest 100G undersea technology, enabling each transatlantic system to ultimately carry capacity in excess of 25 terabits-per-second, offering Apollo a seamless path to expand their networks in an efficient and cost-effective way. Client interfaces at 100Gbit/s are implemented to simplify the backhaul network from an operational and maintenance perspective.

Richard Elliott, Managing Director of Apollo, said: “Wholesale providers expect higher speeds, faster provisioning and reliability. The deployment of Alcatel-Lucent’s 100G solution enables us to further meet these expectations on the largest international route in the world. At Apollo we only provide long haul high capacity services and so getting this right is our entire focus. We are proud to work with Alcatel-Lucent and delighted with the performance of this step change in our technology.”

Philippe Dumont, President of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks said: “The supply of new capacity and connectivity, in the form of a new cable system or an upgrade, is key if new communications services are to be launched and fast-growing sectors like cloud computing and content delivery sustained. Alcatel-Lucent’s 100G solution addresses Apollo’s and operators’ needs to cope with the demand for additional bandwidth capacity, along with a requirement for high-accessibility to content, low-latency and relevant security features.”