Alcatel-Lucent to upgrade Asia America Gateway

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) and Asia America Gateway, a consortium-owned fiber-optic cable system, have signed a contract to upgrade the Asia America Gateway (AAG) submarine cable system, covering the section from Philippines to the United States. Spanning almost half the length of the Equator, AAG connects Malaysia to the US via Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, and the US West Coast.

By leveraging Alcatel-Lucent’s coherent transmission technology, the 20,000-km-long AAG system will add multi-terabit data capacity to cope with the rapid expansion of data traffic in countries along its route, while rapidly increasing its capability to meet cloud service requirements.

When it launched in 2009, AAG delivered the first terabit submarine cable network between south-east Asia and the US, being designed for an ultimate capacity of 1.92 Tbps. The coherent technology to be used for the upgrade will increase the maximum system capacity to over 8 Tbps.

Originally installed by Alcatel-Lucent and NEC, the AAG system received an upgrade in 2011 by Mitsubishi (see “Asia America Gateway undersea cable system to get 40-Gbps upgrade via Mitsubishi Electric”). This time Alcatel-Lucent managed to win back the upgrade business.

Alcatel-Lucent will provide its 1620 Light Manager submarine line terminal equipment using coherent technology at 40G, expandable to 100G, to provide the most efficient use of the available optical spectrum. The equipment incorporates the latest soft-decision forward error correction (SDFEC) technology to increase scalability. Additionally, Alcatel-Lucent says its technology offers multi-vendor adaptability.

Vito Pavone, chairman of the AAG management committee said, “This new investment in additional capacity on the AAG system will further help to address the persistent demand for anywhere, anytime broadband access. Alcatel-Lucent’s technology offers an adaptable solution to continue implementing our staged upgrade strategy to meet significant bandwidth increments over time, while protecting our investments in the subsea plant.”

For more information on high-speed transmission systems and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer’s Guide.