Wednesday, November 5, 2003

Tyco to Sell its Undersea Fiber Network

Tyco International announced a major restructuring that will include the sale of Tyco Global Network, its undersea fiber optic telecommunications network, and its exit from more than 50 other businesses.
TGN had a pre-tax operating loss of $117 million during the company's recently completed fiscal year 2003. The Tyco Global Network encompasses some of the world's largest undersea cable systems. The company provides bandwidth at all STM/OC levels, as well as clear-channel wavelengths and fiber pairs.
http://www.tycotelecom.com

  • In December 2002, Tyco completed and commissioned its Transpacific network, consisting of a total cable length of approximately 18,000 km, including two direct trans-Pacific cables from Oregon to Japan, with extensions to California and Guam. The cable was designed to provide a total capacity in excess of 5 Tbps per cable across the ring when fully equipped. Tyco said the network marks the first application of a new ultra-wide band fiber that manages the dispersion slope across the entire usable transmission band. This new design uses two specially designed fiber types that are "matched" in properties within each 45-kilometer repeater span to create a transmission fiber optic path that has very wide-band operation.



  • The Tyco Global Network also includes two trans-Atlantic cables, each with 4 fiber pairs capable of carrying 64 10 Gbps wavelengths per fiber pair. The transatlantic segment of the TyCom Global Network began carrying commercial traffic in June 2001.



  • Tyco purchased the AT&T Submarine Systems group in 1997 and Telecommunications Marinas from Telefonica in 1999.