West Africa Cable System Plans UK Extension, 40 Gbps

Alcatel-Lucent has been selected to build an extension of the West Africa Cable System (WACS) from Portugal to the UK. The leg will span 2,000 km and operate at 40 Gbps. Under the contract extension, WACS will also deploy GMPLS capabilities providing dynamic and automated service provisioning for highest quality of service.


This extension follows the recent successful field trial with Alcatel-Lucent of 40G solution, which also leverages next-generation coherent technology, and will further bolster connectivity along the Africa-Europe route.


The WACS consortium is composed of 12 parties: Angola Cables, Broadband Infraco, Cable & Wireless, Congo Telecom, MTN, Office Congolais des Postes et Télécommunications,Portugal Telecom / Cabo Verde Telecom, Tata Communications / Neotel, Telecom Namibia, Telkom SA, Togo Telecom and Vodacom.


With commercial service expected by 2011, WACS will provide Namibia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Togo and the Republic of Congo with the first direct access to the global submarine cable communication network. It will connect South Africa to the UK with landings in Namibia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Cape Verde, the Canary Islands, and Portugal.
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