GBI, Xtera Announce Full 100G Connectivity between Egypt and Italy

Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the Middle East’s first carrier neutral regional network, and Xtera Communications Inc. (Xtera), a leading global provider of optical networking solutions, announced the full 100G connectivity between Zafarana cable landing station in Egypt on the Red Sea and Milan Point-of-Presence (PoP) in Italy.

Xtera deployed its multi-purpose Nu-Wave Optima™ platform in submarine and terrestrial line terminal equipment configurations delivering 100G waves in both the subsea and land sections of the 5,000-km Zafarana-to-Milan route. The subsea section across the Mediterranean Sea connects Abu Talat, Egypt to Mazara del Vallo, Italy and has been in service since the first quarter of 2012. It is the first commercial repeatered submarine cable system with 100G technology. Working and protect routes compose both terrestrial sections in Egypt and Italy to ensure the highest network availability. The 4,900-km Italy backhaul network was deployed on a mix of fiber types and characteristics. The Italy and Egypt backhaul networks are believed to be the first commercial systems in the world with installed design capacity of 90 x 100G. To ensure maximal network resiliency, colorless and directionless Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Multiplexers (ROADMs) are used for restoration of the traffic in the event of fiber plant failures.

The Zafarana-to-Milan route has its first 100G end-to-end connection with GBI offering routes from Europe to the Middle East and on to Asia. GBI is counting on the most advanced optical networking technology developments to deliver new services to the Middle East and beyond. The 100G line transmission rate deployment, which was announced 9 months ago, is playing a key role in GBI’s service delivery strategy.

“We are pleased to be working with Xtera to achieve this landmark 100G deployment in the Mediterranean,” commented Mr. Ahmed Mekky, Board Member and CEO of GBI. “Today’s announcement reflects our ongoing commitment to be the region’s most advanced subsea cable operator and to ensure that our customers benefit from the latest technological advancements.”

Xtera’s Nu-Wave Optima™ platform is a unique modular optical transport system designed to lower the total cost of ownership by using a common, integrated set of modules for long-haul, unrepeatered and regional repeatered submarine applications. The Nu-Wave Optima™ configuration for regional repeatered submarine cable system includes a line monitoring module used for the supervision of the submerged repeaters.

Being the world’s first 100G equipment in the field since the second half of 2011 with soft-decision Forward Error Correction (FEC), Xtera’s Nu-Wave Optima™ offers the industry’s most advanced 100G solution that is available today for multiple optical networking applications. For terrestrial backbone networks, the Nu-Wave Optima™ equipment delivers an unrivaled line capacity of 15 Tb/s on more than 3,000 km. For unrepeatered applications, a capacity of 34 x 100G was recently transmitted over a cable attenuation exceeding 74 dB.

“Through the completion of backhaul networks in Egypt and Italy, coupled with the first 100G commercial repeatered subsea link, Xtera is extremely pleased to be part of GBI’s ambitious project to improve the international connections to the Middle East,” said Jon Hopper, President and CEO of Xtera. “GBI’s selection of Nu-Wave Optima™ platform further demonstrates the relevancy of Xtera’s advanced 100G and optical amplification technologies to improve the capacity and efficiency of any type of optical long-haul transmission infrastructures.”

The proven Nu-Wave Optima™ multi-purpose platform offers unparalleled 100G WDM performance in real network conditions based on the combination of the industry’s most powerful 100G technology and unique line equipment to face different span configurations. Some examples include:

– A N x 100G 1,350-km route including a 250-km / 60-dB span;

– The longest N x 100G all-optical link ever deployed with a reach of 2,500 km, including 24 spans, and going through 9 ROADMS; and

– 7 Tb/s per fiber pair on a 350-km / 65.5-dB unrepeatered link.

The deployment of 100G Nu-Wave Optima™ solution over 8,000 km of optical routes for GBI represents an additional wide-scale 100G project for Xtera.

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Press Release, October 17, 2012; Image: Nexans