adminThe privately owned company has selected United States firm, Ciena Corporation’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform and OneControl Unified Management System for the upgrade of its submarine network across the Southern and Eastern African coastlines.
The upgrade includes key countries in Seacom’s 17 000km undersea network, including India, Egypt, Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa.
The solution will allow Seacom to deliver its capacity in very short time-frames and provide for future demands.
The deployment will initially use Ciena’s 40G coherent transport technology, with ultra-long distance 100G wavelengths planned for future upgrades.
Claes Segelberg, chief technology officer at Seacom, said connectivity services in Africa were booming due to the growing needs of business IT users, the rise of ”cloud” based services, and growing requirements for the processing and storing of personal data hence the need to upgrade.
“Ciena’s technology will enable us to scale our capacity cost-effectively to address this growing demand for connectivity throughout the continent.
“The company’s future-proof network design has mitigated the risks associated with the upgrade project, ensuring a seamless transition for Seacom’s carrier customers and end users,” he said.
Ed McCormack, vice president and general manager, submarine systems at Ciena, concurred.
“In the last couple of years, bandwidth penetration in several African countries has increased tenfold with the support of Seacom’s submarine network.
“Ciena’s coherent technology will enable Seacom to evolve and grow its network cost-effectively. It will lay the foundations for a unified terrestrial and submarine network and evolution path to a GeoMesh network architecture.
“This project demonstrates a key aim of Ciena’s OPn network architecture vision: to bend the cost curve of networking in the face of new service requirements,” said McCormack.
Ciena’s technology will allow Seacom to meet the growing capacity demands of its customers and enable affordable Internet access to East Africa with a network that offers a better cost point and a smoother evolution path for the future. – CAJ News.
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