A group of telecommunications operators, comprising Cable & Wireless Communications, Setar, Telconet, Telefonica Global Solutions and United Telecommunication Services (UTS), has signed a contract with Alcatel-Lucent to deploy the Pacific Caribbean Cable System (PCCS), a 100G submarine cable system linking Jacksonville(Florida) to Manta (Ecuador).
The 6000 km submarine cable system aims to strengthen digital links as demand grows rapidly throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America for online content such as tourism related services, sports coverage and digital TV. The cable system deployment is scheduled for roll-out before the end of this year and commercial operations for the PCCS are scheduled to commence by the third quarter of 2014.
In addition to Florida and Ecuador, the system will connect the islands of Tortola, Puerto Rico, Aruba and Curacao, as well as Cartagena in Colombia and Maria Chiquita and Balboa in Panama. The system will have an ultimate design capacity of 80 Tbps.
The Alcatel-Lucent service to be deployed for the project includes an integrated 100G wet plant of cable optimized with submarine fiber and high bandwidth repeaters, power feed equipment, and its 1620 Light Manager (LM) submarine line terminal equipped with advanced coherent technology. The service will be managed by the Alcatel-Lucent submarine management system. As part of the turnkey contract, Alcatel-Lucent will also be responsible for project management, system design, marine operations and system commissioning.
