Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) announced that it has signed a turnkey contract valued at over US$500 million with Africa Coast to Europe or ACE.
Commenting about ACE, the company said that it is a newly formed consortium composed of 20 operators linking Cape Town in South Africa to Penmarch in France via a submarine cable network. This new submarine network system, with built-in 40 Gbit/s capability, will span over 17,000 km and will deliver super fast broadband communications to and from the African continent and Europe.
Alcatel added that, upon expected commercial service in the first half of 2012, this network will bring broadband optical data connectivity for the first time to the people of Mauritania, Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sao Tome and Principe, and Equatorial Guinea.
Apart from providing commercial data, the network will also provide a higher level of service and traffic protection in the region by featuring Alcatel-Lucent's technology advancements in next-generation coherent technology, including innovations from Bell Labs, to deal with transmission impairments in a cost-effective and automated manner, the company said.
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