Alcatel Awarded $45 Million Terrestrial and Undersea Optics Contract

DALLAS, March 5 -- Alcatel has been awarded a $45 million contract by the Sea-Me-We 3 consortium to upgrade the network to support 10 Gb/s transmission, representing a 40 percent capacity increase.

Sea-Me-We 3 is the world's longest intercontinental network connecting Northern Europe to East Asia and Australia, spanning approximately 40,000 km. Initially designed to support 2.5 Gb/s WDM transmission, two wavelengths out of eight -- on a single optical fiber pair -- will be upgraded to 10 Gb/s.

Alcatel is the sole provider for the terrestrial portion of the project, including dense wavelength division multiplexing systems and end-to-end network management. Alcatel will also supply the major part of the undersea optical networking infrastructure. The installation and commissioning of the 10 Gb/s upgrade will be completed and operational by February 2003.

The upgrade will be performed on seven out of the ten Sea-Me-We 3 segments and in the landing stations of more than nine countries, from Portugal to Hong Kong.