AT&T Co says it is the leading investor, with 25% ownership, in the new Americas-1 undersea fibre optic cable system directly connecting the US, St Thomas, Brazil, Trinidad and Venezuela: part of the cable system will use new AT&T Bell Laboratories SL2000 undersea cable technology, which can carry speech, data and video communications at speeds of up to 5Gbps, 10 times the speed of today’s newest transoceanic systems, and can carry another fibre pair so that it could carry the equivalent of up to 1m simultaneous phone calls; in the segment between Florida and St Thomas, the investors chose a transmission speed of 2.5Gbps over two fibre pairs, and will use optical amplifiers to boost digital signals, as they travel along the system, rather than regenerate them electronically; the segment into Trinidad will operate at 560Mbps over three fibre pairs, as will the segments into Brazil and Venezuela, but over two fibre pairs; in 1994, Americas-1 will complement the recently-completed Caribbean system, Taino-Carib, linking Puerto Rico, St Thomas and Tortola, and will operate with another system planned for the region, Columbus-II, linking Portugal, Spain, Italy, St Thomas, Mexico and the US, together forming the first fibre optic network to offer a direct connection between the US, Europe and Latin America.
