TE Subcom, Alcatel-Lucen t Extend Subsea Comms Pact
TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, and Alcatel-Lucent announced an expansion to their joint maintenance program for submarine optical communication links throughout the Pacific basin. The Pacific End-to-End Maintenance Solution boosts the companies’ ability to maintain and repair undersea cables in the northern Pacific region, to support current telecommunications clients and other potential customers seeking marine services. Submarine cable networks connect countries and continents, carrying vast amounts of data traffic, including video. They are developed for high reliability over their 25-year design life. However, cables can be damaged by external forces such as earthquakes, hurricanes, intense fishing activity and ship anchors.
O3b Networks, Netcom-Africa Provide Connectivity
O3b Networks announced that the company has signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal with Netcom Africa, a provider of satellite and wireless broadband solutions to provide low latency, high capacity broadband connectivity to ships and offshore platforms in Nigeria utilizing O3bs Medium Earth Orbit technology. Nigeria is one of the world’s largest oil producing nations with most multinational oil and gas corporations operating in the region. Despite the availability of multiple submarine cable networks on the coast of the country, service providers have struggled to meet the unique needs of the oil and gas sector. The bandwidth will be delivered over the city of Lagos, the Niger Delta region as well as the offshore oil rigs that comprise approximately 50 platforms.
Seafloor Observatory Gets $20m
The research capacity of the University of Victoria-led NEPTUNE Canada, the world’s first regional cabled ocean observatory, received a significant boost today with the announcement of an additional $20 million in funding. The $8 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), $8 million from the BC Knowledge Development Fund (BCKDF) and $4 million of in-kind support from private partners including Alcatel will allow scientists to significantly expand the scope and scientific impact of the NEPTUNE Canada observatory. Beginning in fall 2007, Alcatel will lay an 800-km network of powered fibre optic cable across the seafloor in the deep ocean off the B.C. coast.
