A major cable system connecting various points in the Caribbean is receiving a capacity upgrade. The Eastern Caribbean Fibre System (ECFS) Consortium has selected Xtera Communications to boost the capacity of its festoon subsea cable system, a ten-segment system which connects Tortola in the British Virgin Islands to Trinidad at the south of the Caribbean arc.
Xtera will implement its Nu-Wave Optima equipment, which provides the ability to mix 10G and 100G channel rates to support existing and emerging high-capacity services. Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Multiplexers (ROADMs) are used in cable landing stations to avoid or minimise the number of regeneration points for island-to-island connectivity.
The additional bandwidth will allow significant improvement in Internet access for residents, tourists and business customers. In addition, the network provides a robust backbone that allows wireless customers to communicate across islands and to the rest of the world.
“New capacity will be added during this upgrade by deploying our high-capacity, long-distance optical transport product, Nu-Wave OptimaTM,” said Jon Hopper, President and CEO of Xtera. “The use of this advanced, field-proven multi-purpose platform will allow ECFS Consortium to introduce 100G services when required by their market”.
The Nu-Wave Optima multi-purpose platform offers 100G WDM performance in real network conditions based on the combination of the industry’s most powerful 100G technology and unique line equipment to face different span configurations.
