Subsea cable consortium taps Infinera for largest ever upgrade

Created May 10, 2022
News and Business

Infinera says the Asia-Africa-Europe-1 (AAE-1) Consortium, owner of one of the largest consortium cable systems in the world, has selected Infinera’s ICE6 coherent 800G solution to increase its submarine network capacity and provide diverse, resilient connectivity across European, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern markets. AAE-1’s submarine upgrade will more than double the current capacity, providing in excess of 100 Tbps, resulting in the largest-scale submarine upgrade in history. The upgrade essentially replaces Infinera’s ICE4 platform which was installed in May 2020.

AAE-1’s cable system spans 25,000 kilometres of submarine and terrestrial networks, connecting 19 countries led by a consortium of 19 operators. Unlike any other cable system in the world, AAE-1 terminates at two points of presence in Singapore for enhanced route diversity and is the only next-generation cable that extends farther into Asia via diverse terrestrial routes across Thailand to provide connectivity to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Hong Kong. This routing enables AAE-1 to deliver one of the lowest-latency routes between Hong Kong, India, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.

“AAE-1 is a significant cable system. As international connections become increasingly important and capacity demand continues to rise, it is vital that we upgrade our system with the industry’s most innovative, advanced optical transmission technology,” said Giuseppe Sini, chairman of AAE-1 Management Committee. “The deployment of Infinera’s ICE6 solution will mark a historic milestone as the largest submarine upgrade in history.”

“AAE-1’s deployment of Infinera’s ICE6 solution across its 25,000-km network is a huge undertaking and accomplishment not many technology companies could achieve,” said Nick Walden, senior vice president, Worldwide Sales, Infinera. “Infinera is proud to deliver innovative solutions that offer seamless integration, scalable capacity, and value to network operators like AAE-1, and to help our customers deliver vital services to their customers with scale and efficiency.”

For more information, visit www.infinera.com

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This article was written
by Peter Dykes

Peter Dykes is a independent telecoms and technology journalist who has over that last 30 years written for a wide range of B2B publications and companies. A former BT engineer, he specialises in networks and associated support systems. He is currently Editor of Optical Connections.