Submarine data link between SE Asia and the US to be upgraded

Alcatel-Lucent and Asia America Gateway, the cable system owned by a consortium of operators, have signed a deal to upgrade the Asia America Gateway (AAG) submarine cable system, covering the route from the Philippines to the United States.

The 20,000 km-long AAG system will add multiterabit data capacity to cope with the rapid expansion of data traffic in countries along its route, while rapidly increasing its capability to meet cloud service requirements, leveraging Alcatel-Lucent’s advanced coherent technology.

Spanning almost half the length of the Equator, AAG connects Malaysia to the US via Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii and the US west coast. The advanced coherent technology to be used for this upgrade will deliver a capability to upgrade the system to over 8 Tbps and will contribute to further strengthen communications reliability over the Asia-US route.

When it was launched in 2009, the Asia-America Gateway represented a breakthrough in delivering the first terabit submarine cable network between SE Asia and the US, being designed for an ultimate capacity of 1.92 Tbps.

“This new investment in additional capacity on the AAG system will further help to address the persistent demand for anywhere, anytime broadband access. Alcatel-Lucent’s technology offers an adaptable solution to continue implementing our staged upgrade strategy to meet significant bandwidth increments over time, while protecting our investments in the subsea plant,” said Vito Pavone, chairman of the AAG Management Committee.

Philippe Dumont, president of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, said: “We are pleased to help AAG operators allow quicker service acceleration to met the expectations of their customers for high-quality broadband applications, storage and computing. Alcatel-Lucent’s unique solution delivers an easy means of scaling up to multiterabit capacity, offering evolution for submarine line terminal equipment while combining technological and economic benefits.”