The East African Submarine System (Eassy), a subsea telecommunications cable along Africa’s eastern shoreline, is set to get a speed boost with supplier Alcatel-Lucent set to deploy the latest 100Gbit/s wavelength technology on the network.
The upgrade will allow Eassy ultimately to carry capacity in excess of 10Tbit/s. The 10 000km cable system connects cable systems in Sudan with the landing station at Mtunzini on South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal north coast. Mtunzini is also home to landing stations for the Safe cable that connects South Africa and Asia and Seacom, which runs through the Mediterranean Sea to a landing station in the south of France.
Eassy is owned and operated by a group of 17 African and international shareholders, all telecommunications operators and service providers. The system is implemented in a protected ring configuration linking eight countries from Sudan to South Africa via Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, the Comores and Mozambique.
Landings are located in Port Sudan, Djibouti (Djibouti), Mombasa (Kenya), Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania), Moroni (Comores), Toliary (Madagascar), Maputo (Mozambique) and Mtunzini. The system also addresses a wide range of international destinations through interconnection with multiple international submarine cable networks for diverse, seamless onward connectivity to Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia.
Eassy management committee chairman Chris Wood says in a statement that since Eassy entered service in 2010, there has been “enormous growth in demand for capacity on the system”.
“This upgrade will add an additional 400Gbit/s of capacity throughout the system, using Alcatel-Lucent’s advanced coherent 100Gbit/s technology, and enables us to take a further step in offering our customers the ultra-broadband capacity needed for innovative services and applications.” — (c) 2014 NewsCentral Media