Alcatel-Lucent has been selected to upgrade a 9,600km trans-Pacific digital submarine cable system that provides direct connectivity from the Japanese east coast to California. The cable, which is owned by 5 major carriers, originally was designed for an ultimate capacity of 960 Gbps per fiber pair. The upgrade will quadruple its original design capacity by use of Alcatel-Lucent’s advanced coherent technology, delivering an ultimate capacity of up to 4 Terabits per second (Tbps) per fiber pair.
The upgrade is based on the Alcatel-Lucent 1620 Light Manager submarine line terminal equipment using coherent technology at 40G, expandable to 100G, and managed by the Alcatel-Lucent 1350 optical management system.
The solution was demonstrated earlier this year on the trans-Pacific submarine cable system network.
