Orange announced ready-for-service status on the new Dunant cable system linking France and the United States and also unveiled for another new transatlantic cable system that could be ready as early as next year.
The Dunant cable, which is a joint project with Google, is now ready for service for its wholesale and business customers. Dunant boasts 12 fibre pairs with over 30 Tbps of capacity each.
The next submarine cable, called AMITIÉ, will take a more northerly route, linking Massachusetts to le Porge near Bordeaux. AMITIÉ will offer 16 fiber pairs of up to 23 Tbps of capacity each. Orange believes this new cable will make Bordeaux a regional connectivity hub. The French operator will supply land links for both systems from the landing station to Bordeaux and then to Paris and Lyon for one, and will offer capacity between Ashburn, the Datacentre alley and Paris, will the latest Point-to-Point optical transmission technology.
Orange will benefit from two fibre pairs on both transatlantic systems, with a total capacity of up to 100 Tbps. Orange is responsible for the French part of these two cables, as the “landing provider”, and is in charge of the operation and maintenance of the landing stations.
Jean-Luc Vuillemin Executive Vice President of Orange International Networks, Infrastructures and Services, said: “In the context of the explosion of international traffic, the arrival of a new generation of more efficient submarine cables, and in view of strategic issues and national sovereignty related to submarine cables, Orange continues to be a key global player. With capacity on these two cables, Orange will be able to offer the latest technology, diverse routes and the best latency to its customers once implemented.”
Furthermore, both cables are designed to evolve at the same pace as future generations of optical transmission technology and will be able to maintain high-level performance for at least the next 20 years.
“At Orange, we invest continually to provide faster, more flexible and more secured connectivity and these two new cables will enable us to get even closer to our customers in today's data-hungry environment,” said Emmanuel Rochas CEO of Orange International Carriers. “Orange provides an enriched multiservice offering for carriers and content providers to better support their development strategies and ultimately to offer improved services to retail and business customers.”
Google's Dunant transatlantic cable makes landfall in France
Google’s transatlantic Dunant cable has landed in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez, in the Vendée region of France. The terrestrial stage of the laying of this cable is proceeding.
As the “Landing Party” and owner of the French part of the cable, Orange has completely refurbished the historic station in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez, which was no longer in use, to house the terminal equipment for the Dunant system. This area is a strategic location, close to the main connectivity hubs on this side of the Atlantic. From this landing station, Orange is deploying terrestrial optical fibres in France between Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez and Paris to route its traffic on the Dunant cable to the capital's major Data Centres and will also provide service to the rest of Europe and major international Data Centres.
Orange will benefit from two pairs of optical fibres with a capacity of up to 30Tbps each.
"We are very pleased with the arrival of the Dunant cable in France. It is the concrete realization of a project in co-construction with Google that will enable us to respond to the explosion of Internet usage over the long term. This partnership strengthens Orange's role as a world leader in the investment, deployment, maintenance and operation of strategic infrastructures. The landing of Dunant on our shores once again places France at the heart of the global digital development," said Jean-Luc Vuillemin, Senior Vice President, International Networks and Services at Orange.
Orange and Telxius to backhaul Google's Dunant transatlantic cable
Under this agreement, Orange and Telxius offer co-location services at their respective Cable Landing Stations in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez (France) and Virginia Beach (US).
From its Saint- Hilaire-de-Riez (85) Cable Landing Station, Orange will enable terrestrial connection to Telxius up to Paris, while Telxius will connect Orange to Ashburn from Virginia Beach.
This collaboration represents a strong transatlantic bridge as both companies can effectively provide multi- terabit capacity on this Europe-US route. It also reinforces Orange and Telxius’ respective positions to support the development of new digital usages for their international customers in Europe and America and bolsters the international leadership position of both companies on the wholesale market to better address the needs of content-providers and third-party operators.
“We are pleased to announce this agreement with Telxius, which will allow us to provide our customers with very high capacity end-to-end services, as well as network redundancy, on the strategic transatlantic route. We will be operating two fiber pairs of over 30 terabits per second between France and the USA. It is a valuable extension to Orange’s global network joining our Atlantic and Mediterranean routes to Africa, the Middle East and Asia with guaranteed best in class quality of service,” said Jerome Barré, CEO of Orange Wholesale and International Networks.https://telxius.com/en/orange-and-telxius-are-teaming-up/
Google's Dunant cable leverages SDM for 250 Tbps capacity
In a blog posting, Vijay Vusirikala, Director of Network Architecture and Optical Engineering at Google, says SDM will increase cable capacity in a cost-effective manner.
Dunant's design uses twelve fiber pairs and power-optimized repeaters. Whereas traditional subsea cables are powered from the shore end and rely on a dedicated set of pump lasers to amplify the optical signal for each fiber pair, SDM allows pump lasers and associated optical components to be shared among multiple fiber pairs.
