Suppliers selected for world`s longest submarine cable
ADELE HARS
Fujitsu of Japan and a consortium led by Alcatel Submarine Networks (SN), Paris, remain the big winners following the announcement of the last major supply contracts for sea-me-we 3, a cable network that will link the Pacific Rim, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The recent $222 million award to a Fujitsu/Alcatel SN team for Segments 1 and 2 means that the two groups have at least a piece of all the supply contracts.
More than 90 telecommunications companies have signed the construction and maintenance agreement and are investing in the project, which will cost $1.3 billion and serve a combined population of three billion people from its 39 landing points (see figure). Not only will sea-me-we 3 be the world`s longest cable, but it will also be the first major submarine project using the latest 10-Gbit/sec wavelength-division multiplexing (wdm) technology and Switched Digital Hierarchy (sdh) transmission. All of the contracts were awarded by Singapore Telecom, Indosat (Indonesia), and Telstra (Sydney, Australia) on behalf of the parties of the sea-me-we 3 Cable System.
The 38,000-km-long cable is divided into 10 segments and will be built in three portions (A, B, and C). Alcatel SN will supply the sdh equipment (multiplexers and add/drop multiplexer crossconnects) and network management for the entire system. On average, the repeaters will be spaced about every 90 km. The company says that sea-me-we 3 will constitute the largest international sdh network in the world.
According to Jean Godeluck, Alcatel SN`s director of sales and marketing, the original contract called for four wavelengths of 2.5 Gbits each. Over two fiber pairs, that makes for 40 Gbits/sec, or an stm-1 connection capable of carrying more than 250,000 circuits. However, it was announced at press time that the buyers had opted to double the capacity to eight wavelengths to support the equivalent of 500,000 calls.
Segments and suppliers
The newly awarded Segments 1 and 2 (Portion C) will span 11,000 km from Singapore to Japan with nine branching units. Fujitsu will build Segment 1 (5000 km from Japan to Shantou, China), and Alcatel SN will build Segment 2 (6000 km from Singapore to Hong Kong). The stretch between Hong Kong and Shantou will be double-built, with both Alcatel SN and Fujitsu laying cable.
Alcatel will use its "17-mm" cable, which uses a minitube technology that protects the fiber within a steel tube, says Godeluck. Although the cable has already been used in shorter runs in the Caribbean and Eastern Europe, this will be the first time it will be used in a major project with repeaters.
Segment 3, a 5000-km link stretching between Singapore, Indonesia, and Australia (Portion B), will be built entirely by Fujitsu under a contract valued at about $84 million. According to a company spokes person, the contract covers a full turnkey system, including survey, design, manufacture, installation, testing, and training.
Segments 4 through 10 (Portion A), which stretch from Singapore to Germany--a distance of 23,000 km--were won entirely by a consortium of suppliers led by Alcatel SN. Other members include at&t Submarine Systems Inc. (at&t ssi), Holmdel, NJ; kdd Submarine Cable System Inc. (kdd-scs), Tokyo; and Pirelli, Milan, Italy. (The parent companies of two of the suppliers, at&t and kdd, are also members of the group of 90 "purchasing" companies investing in the project.) The total consortium contract is valued at $737 million. According to Alcatel, this is the most complex network configuration of any undersea system to date, covering 25 landing points and 15 branching units. Delivery is scheduled for December 1998.
kdd-scs will supply Segment 4, which goes from Singapore to Mumbai, India (also known as Bombay). The company, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kokusai Denshin Denwa Co. Ltd., will provide its os-w cable, repeaters, and terminal equipment. At press time, technical specifications were not yet public, but Makoto Takahashi, managing director of kdd-scs`s Sales and Marketing Business Administration Unit, says the information will be available at the May Suboptic `97 conference in San Francisco, CA.
Segment 5 will be a joint effort between Alcatel SN and kdd-scs, with Alcatel SN supplying all the repeaters and terminal equipment and kdd-scs supplying the cable. This segment will stretch from Mumbai to Djibouti, at the mouth of the Red Sea, with three branching units.
at&t ssi will construct Segment 6, which runs from Djibouti to Suez, Egypt, with one branching unit. The cable will be the company`s TrueWave fiber, says Jack Zsakany, director of marketing and sales in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa for at&t ssi. TrueWave is a form of dispersion-shifted fiber, particularly well-suited to optically amplified projects, as opposed to the germanium-doped fiber used on regenerative projects such as sea-me-we 2. The company also will use a new addition to its SL2000 product line of optical amplifiers. Zsakany indicates that at&t ssi will supply some equipment for other segments as well, although details are not yet available.
Segment 7, which runs over land from Suez to Alexandria, Egypt, will be built completely by Alcatel.
For Segment 8, which runs from Alexandria to Sesimbra, Portugal, Alcatel SN will supply 5000 km of the system. Within this segment, Pirelli will supply 2030 km of fiber cable and affiliated installation. According to a Pirelli spokesman, almost half of the Pirelli cable will be installed from Mazara del Vallo, Italy, to Sesimbra; the other half will stretch from Mazara del Vallo toward the Greek island of Crete. The Pirelli cable will be the "18.5-mm" type, equipped with four to eight fibers, says the spokesperson.
Segment 9, which runs from Sesimbra to France, will use existing cable, says Godeluck. Known as Tagide 2, the cable is being donated by France Telecom and Marconi as part of their investment in the project. Alcatel SN will upgrade the terminal equipment.
The final segment, Segment 10, which runs from France to Germany, will be an all-Alcatel portion.
"The real challenge in this project is the short delivery time," says Godeluck. "We`ve got an end-of-1998 delivery date with new technology." While he implies that the sea-me-we 3 contract is not as lucrative as the sea-me-we 2 contract was, he says, "We have the impression that there is a real boom in the world telecommunications market for submarine projects. After all, 80% of the transworld telecommunications is by cable." q
Adele Hars writes from Paris.