Oceans cover over 70% of our planet. Separating continents and people. To get in touch and keep in touch, the world has come to rely on submarine networks for voice, data and Internet communication. Leveraging its more than 150 years of expertise in the submarine cable business, Alcatel has played a key role in the development and implementation of the most important submarine cable networks in operation today. To date, we've deployed more than 450,000 km of submarine cable networks.

Since the start of this year, Alcatel has signed four major contracts that will expand or upgrade these undersea networks that make such a difference in our daily lives. This work will span from West Africa, via the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, down to India and South East Asia.

After a number of quiet years, the submarine cable network market is making waves again!

In April, Alcatel announced that it will deploy a new turnkey submarine cable network for Orascom Telecom , the largest GSM network operator in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. Scheduled for service in the second half of 2005, the new submarine cable network will connect Marseille in France to Algiers and Annaba in Algeria spanning nearly 1,300 km and further improving the connectivity between Algeria, European and all international networks. The Alcatel solution will allow Orascom Telecom enhance network capacity in order to roll out advanced services to a larger customer base, at faster speeds, and more cost-effectively.

Orascom Submarine Network

In March, Alcatel was awarded a turnkey contract to deploy an integrated submarine and terrestrial optical solution for the 10Gbit/s upgrade of the Sea-Me-We 3 submarine cable network. The upgrade will provide the 38,000 km Sea-Me-We 3 cable network with extra capacity to support the increased traffic loads driven by the rollout of broadband services. With completion scheduled by the end of 2005, Alcatel will upgrade submarine sections linking the UK to India via France, Portugal, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti in Africa and the United Arab Emirates , and will also upgrade all terrestrial stations along the network.

In February, Alcatel signed a turnkey contract with FLAG Telecom , a leading provider of international wholesale network transport and communications services, to deploy FALCON , a multi-terabit/s new generation DWDM submarine cable system bringing terabit/s capacity to the Gulf for the first time, and providing additional access to India, the second largest growth economy in the world. Scheduled to be ready for initial service by the fourth quarter of 2005, the 10,000 km FALCON network will be built and installed in simultaneous sections using several submarine cable laying ships.