Lucent Signs TyCom for New Undersea Fibers

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, Oct. 2 -- Lucent Technologies said that TyCom Ltd. will be its first customer for UltraWave optical fibers; a new family of fibers created by Lucent's Optical Fiber Solutions (OFS) business that enables submarine network providers to increase the capacity of ultralong-haul undersea networks. TyCom will deploy UltraWave fiber in its 5,600-mile (9,010 km) TyCom Global Network (TGN) Pacific North transoceanic network segment connecting Japan and the United States.

UltraWave provides a broad operating range for high-capacity, ultralong-haul transoceanic networks. Utilizing two fibers with offsetting chromatic dispersion values; along with matched dispersion slopes; UltraWave optical fibers enable network providers to more than double the number of channels of their longest networks.