Both Alcatel-Lucent and Fujitsu have been selected to participate in upgrading the capacity of the South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe (Sea-Me-We) 4 submarine cable system that connects numerous countries from Singapore to France.
Under the terms of the contract, Alcatel-Lucent will upgrade the India-France submarine link by deploying, installing and commissioning additional DWDM, based on its 1620 Light Manager. In addition, Alcatel-Lucent will upgrade the 1626 Light Manager-based terrestrial link connecting Alexandria and Suez, and the existing SDH equipment, the Alcatel-Lucent 1678 Metro Core Connect, for this extensive network.
Fujitsu will upgrade the Singapore-India submarine link by deploying, installing and commissioning additional DWDM, notably its FLASHWAVE S650 for this extensive network.
The multi-million dollar second upgrade will further double the existing trunk capacity of the system, going beyond the original design capacity. Completion of the upgrade is expected by 2009.
Owned and operated by 16 carriers, Sea-Me-We 4 spans nearly 20,000 km linking 14 countries from France to Singapore via Italy, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia with 16 landing points.
Alcatel-Lucent had the turnkey responsibility of this state-of-the-art network from design to laying for segments 2, 3, and 4 linking Mumbai to Marseilles, as well as the overall responsibility for the synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) end-to-end realization. Alcatel-Lucent, and its co-contractor Fujitsu, had supplied the initial Sea-Me-We 4 network that started commercial operation in the fourth quarter of 2005. The network's capacity was subsequently tripled in the third quarter of 2007. http://www.alcatel-lucent.comhtttp://www.fujitsu.com
- In February 2008, a consortium of nine leading global telecom carriers met in Rome to sign a formal Construction and Maintenance Agreement for a new high-capacity fiber-optic submarine cable that will stretch from India to France via the Middle East. The cable system, known as I-ME-WE (India, Middle East, Western Europe) is the fifth in the series of similar cable systems which includes the SEA-ME-WE series. Parties to the agreement include Bharti Airtel (India), Etisalat (UAE), France Telecom (France), Ogero (Lebanon), PTCL (Pakistan), STC (Saudi Arabia), TE (Egypt), TIS Sparkle (Italy) and VSNL (India). The I-ME-WE cable system is being designed to provide up to 3.84 Tbps and span almost 14,000 kilometers. The companies hope to have the cable in service by late 2009.
