Alcatel-Lucent Selected for Africa-Coast-to-Europe Cable

Alcatel-Lucent has signed a turnkey contract valued at over US$500 million with Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), a newly formed consortium composed of 20 operators linking Cape Town in South Africa to Penmarch in France via a submarine cable network.


With an ultimate design capacity of 5.12 Terabit per second (Tbps), ACE has built-in 40 Gbps. Its 17,000-km coastal route will link South Africa to France - via Namibia, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, The Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania, Tenerife (Spain) and Portugal -- and will have 21 landing points along the route. Commercial launch is expected in the first half of 2012.

Initiated and headed by France Telecom-Orange, the consortium is composed of twenty parties: Baharicom Development Company, Benin Telecoms, Cable Consortium of Liberia, Orange Cameroun, Companhia Santomense de Telecomunicações, Côte d'Ivoire Telecom, Expresso Telecom Group, France Telecom, Gambia Telecommunications Company, International Mauritania Telecom, Office Congolais des Postes et Télécommunication, Orange Guinea, Orange Mali, Orange Niger, PT Comunicações, the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, the Gabonese Republic, Sierra Leone Cable, Société des Télécommunications de Guinée and Sonatel.

Alcatel-Lucent will deploy its advance submarine line terminal (1620 Light Manager) working at up to 40 Gbps and using phase shift keying (PSK)-based modulation formats with next-generation coherent detection to deal with transmission impairments. Alcatel-Lucent will also supply its branching units and will implement its 1678 Metro Core Connect in the landing points that will be located along the route.
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