July 5, 2006 Paris -- Alcatel has signed a contract with Maroc Telecom, the leading telecommunication operator in Morocco, for a submarine cable network linking Morocco and France. The project, dubbed Atlas Offshore, is valued at Euro 26 million and will help Maroc Telecom enhance its network capacity in support of new broadband service delivery.
The submarine network will span more than 1,600 km between Marseille in France and Asilah in Morocco. Once completed in early 2007, it will enable Maroc Telecom to handle its increasing number of DSL subscribers by leveraging enhanced connectivity and broadband access capabilities.
Further, the submarine network will create a new traffic route offering an alternative path to the existing 3,200-km Eurafrica submarine system linking France, Morocco, and Portugal. The 320-Gbit/sec capacity offered by the Marseille-Asilah connection will be 570 times higher than the one delivered by the Eurafrica submarine network. In addition, the new submarine link will benefit from advanced restoration capabilities and will serve as backhaul infrastructure for Eurafrica.
"New applications and services are increasingly raising the bar of the capacity, performance, and efficiency that submarine networks must guarantee," notes Jean Godeluck, president of Alcatel's submarine networking activities. "Alcatel's optical networking solutions deliver the benefits of maximum network effectiveness to support our customer in best serving their end-users."
The Alcatel turnkey solution will be based on its DWDM submarine equipment, including the 1620 Light Manager (LM) submarine line terminal and repeatered cables, as well as the 1678 Metro Core Connect (MCC) for terrestrial applications. All the equipment will be managed by Alcatel's 1350 management suite. Alcatel also will be in charge of the installation, commissioning, integration, and testing of the entire system, along with post-commissioning support.