Alcatel-Lucent to lay cable to East Africa

Alcatel-Lucent has signed a turnkey contract with the East Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) consortium to lay the first ever optical submarine cable network landing in East Africa.

Based on Alcatel-Lucent’s submarine and terrestrial optical solutions, EASSy will provide connectivity across the continent to support the increase in local traffic from both traditional and new broadband services. Additionally, with interconnection to other submarine cable systems to the North and South, this project will provide an international gateway, crucial for the economic development of the region.

With completion scheduled by the end of 2008, the EASSy submarine network will deliver a regional capacity of 320 Gbit/s.

The EASSy submarine network will span nearly 10,000km, linking eight countries from

Sudan

to

South Africa

, via

Djibouti

,

Somalia

,

Kenya

,

Tanzania

,

Madagascar

and

Mozambique

. Landings will be located in

Port Sudan

,

Djibouti

(

Djibouti

),

Mogadishu

(

Somalia

)

Mombasa

(

Kenya

),

Dar Es Salaam

(

Tanzania

), Toliary (

Madagascar

),

Maputo

(

Mozambique

) and Mtunzini (

South Africa

).

The Alcatel-Lucent submarine solution will be based on its 1620 Light Manager next-generation DWDM submarine platform, and will also include cables and submarine repeaters. Branching units will ensure direct connectivity to landing stations where Alcatel-Lucent will deploy its 1678 Metro Core Connect (MCC) for terrestrial interconnection. The Alcatel-Lucent 1350 management system will supervise all the equipment supplied. Alcatel will also supply professional services, including project management, engineering, marine operation, and installation testing and commissioning.