Alcatel-Lucent Upgrades Subsea Cable System Between Japan and California

Alcatel-Lucent is carrying out a major upgrade of a 9,600km trans-Pacific digital submarine cable system using advanced coherent technology.

The cable, owned by 5 major carriers, provides direct connectivity from the Japanese east coast to California. The upgrade will deliver multi-terabit capability to cope with the explosion of data traffic driven by ownership of smartphones and tablets, as well as the increase in video applications and the shift of enterprise activities to the cloud. The first phase of the upgrade will increase the system capacity by 1 Terabit/s.

Recent research by TeleGeography suggests that the amount of trans-Pacific used capacity will increase at a compound annual rate of 36 percent between now and 2018. With the system originally designed for an ultimate capacity of 960 Gigabits-per-second (Gbit/s) per fiber pair, the upgrade will quadruple its original design capacity by use of Alcatel-Lucent’s advanced coherent technology, delivering an ultimate capacity of up to 4 Terabits per second (Tbit/s) per fiber pair which is equivalent to approximately 500,000 HDTV channels simultaneously broadcasting a live major sporting event.

Regional and international operators are moving to the most advanced ultra-long reach technology with the highest spectral efficiency ever offered over a trans-Pacific distance. This upgrade, using state-of-the-art and field proven submarine technology from Alcatel-Lucent, is a strategic move to expand the overall capabilities of trans-Pacific communication infrastructures to benefit from a time-to-market advantage, improved performance and better scalability.

Philippe Dumont, President of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, said: “Carriers, service providers, multi-media and content providers all are expanding their networks to support Internet and data center applications, while protecting their existing investments. Alcatel-Lucent’s unique submarine solution delivers ease of upgrade and scalability to multi-terabit capacity, offering a staged migration combining technological and economic benefits. This upgrade will allow quicker service turn-upto meet customers’ expectations for anywhere, anytime access to broadband applications, storage and computing.”

[mappress]
Press Release, January 21, 2013