Telecom Egypt has deployed TE-NORTH Cable System with 40 Gigabit per second (40G) wavelengths using Alcatel-Lucent’s advanced coherent technology across the Mediterranean to meet the growing demand of its customers and the region.
The 40G technology enhances Telecom Egypt’s ability to serve global operators whose international services transit Egypt and rely on Egypt to hub the services in the Middle East, Asia and Africa region.
The 3600km system connects Abu Talat, Egypt, to Marseille, France, with a branch to Pentaskhinos, Cyprus and also includes other branching units for further expansions in the Mediterranean basin.
Telecom Egypt SVP Mohamed Elnawawy said this presents an enhanced cost point, sheer capacity levels and more resilience which presents the IP cloud with another reason for Egypt being a natural centre for global IP peering and transit.
Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks SAS president Philippe Dumont said mixing advanced 40G coherent technology with existing 10G channels enables operators like Telecom Egypt to best serve their customers and the end-users in the region with adequate speed and bandwidth to experience broadband multimedia services such as video with the highest quality.
To implement the upgrade, Alcatel-Lucent used the latest 1620 Light Manager product, previously deployed as part of the original $25m contract, and which was subsequently upgraded to 40G.
To demonstrate the upgradability of the TE North system, a field trial was conducted on the system in 2010 with 64x40G channel capability per fiber pair, using a proprietary modulation format coupled with next-generation coherent detection which mitigated the transmission impairments in a cost-effective and automated manner.
