TE SubCom, Ciena in Alliance to Advance Open Submarine Cable Networks

TE SubCom and Ciena have agreed to an alliance that should further the advancement of open submarine cable networking solutions.

Reportedly, customers seeking a single point of contact for both wet plant and dry plant will have the option to combine TE SubCom’s wet plant designs and marine installation with Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, powered by WaveLogic coherent optics, to create an undersea cable system.

Introduced in 2015, TE SubCom’s Open Cables business model allows customers the flexibility to select their preferred submarine transceiver equipment vendor.

TE SubCom’s Open Cables model will now also provide customers the option of buying a combined solution using Ciena equipment on TE SubCom-designed wet plant.

“Having manufactured our own submarine line termination equipment for decades, we are well aware which technologies are required to efficiently utilize our wet plant system. Ciena produces innovative, flexible and responsive technology that will provide for a fully optimized undersea cable network,” said Aaron Stucki, president of TE SubCom. “The Open Cables model has enabled us to offer our customers options that have never before been available in the undersea cable industry. That model is now further enhanced through this agreement with Ciena, as cable operators wishing to deploy Ciena’s equipment on TE SubCom networks will be able to do so efficiently, with the full support of our engineering team and our commitment to on-time delivery of an end-to-end solution.”

“As customers increasingly choose to consume network technology in different ways to address evolving network requirements for today’s web-scale world, this alliance with TE SubCom helps us continue meeting their needs for open, programmable, multi-vendor networks to create powerful and flexible next-generation undersea systems,” said Gary Smith, president and CEO of Ciena. “Collaborating with TE SubCom will provide Ciena greater reach into submarine network operators and give customers a more diverse range of options for network configuration.”