Alcatel-Lucent Submarine woos GoTo Networks

NEW DELHI: Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks (ASN), the submarine cables subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, has introduced 1620 SOFTNODE, an industry-first platform that enables the transmission of 240 terabit-per second (Tbit/s) on multiple fiber pairs and helps operators to open up the path to new data services, while extending their reach and creating long-haul economies of scale.

The new platform has been selected by GoTo Networks for the Australia West Express system, the first direct undersea cable between Australia, the Middle East and Africa.

It will enable undersea cable system operators to meet increased demand for capacity, connectivity and flexible data exchange with the introduction of a major innovation that will transform existing submarine line terminal assets, a statement said.

The platform’s capabilities were also demonstrated during a recent field trial conducted over the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) system, which has been in service since December 2012. The field trial demonstrated a breakthrough transmission of 12.6 Tbit/s of data per fiber pair.

The company's new platform leverages the field-proven 1620LM submarine line terminal equipment, and will provide webscale connectivity between data centres and Points-of-Presence (PoPs) in different continents.

Additionally, the platform will optimize the footprint in the landing station as the new terminal equipment dimensions are reduced by as much as 10 times, also reducing power consumption by a factor of 2-3 compared to previous generation SLTE technology.

“At the same time, existing undersea plant designed with legacy technology needs to better support design capacity, connectivity and flexibility. By evolving the 1620 SLTE architecture to SOFTNODE, new and enhanced node configurations will provide more advantages over traditional submarine cable architectures both at node level and at system level,” said Olivier Gautheron, Chief Technology Officer of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks.