Products and Solutions

Alcatel offers a complete range of submarine network solutions, from the shortest links -continent to island, coastal festoons - to ultra-long haul systems through transoceanic routes. Alcatel handles the overall equipment needed to build a submarine network, from R&D to manufacturing and delivery. For the latter, the company relies on a dedicated state-of-the-art fleet of cable vessels to ensure that your system is properly laid. Finally, since we accompany you at all the stages of the project, we propose a range of both upstream and downstream services - dry and wet maintenance.

Our product portfolio implements the dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) technology and offers large system capacities using multiple optical channels.

The whole product range is compliant with all recognised international standards. ISO 9000 certification guarantees that customers will benefit from the best industry practices and highest quality standards.

Submarine network solutions offered by Alcatel can be tailored to each customer's specific requirements, thereby inducing the following benefits

High capacity universal transmission backbone

Thanks to DWDM, current transmission capacity ranges from 2.5 Gbit/s  to more than 1.26 Tbit/s per fibre pair (126 channels at 10 Gbit/s each). Alcatel research laboratories are actively developing the technologies for increased capacity.

Our systems can transport data and voice traffic indifferently and network operators may select, for each channel, the interconnection equipment used according to the traffic type (IP backbone router or high capacity SDH/SONET multiplexer). Optimum built-in traffic flexibility is therefore a key feature of the offered backbone infrastructures.

Highly reliable network infrastrucuture

Network reliability and dependability is an essential criterion for telecommunications operators. Alcatel designs submarine cable networks with built-in reliability at all levels.

Alcatel's cables for submarine systems feature a field-proven design, based on a welded steel tube, which encases the optical fibres and protects them from external stress and water ingress. In addition, several types of armouring with steel wires offer outer mechanical protection, adapted to each specific application. Finally, depending on the actual cable route and local conditions, the cable can be buried under the seabed to minimise the hazards generated by fishing trawlers or ships' anchors.

All submerged electronic equipment, such as the optically amplified repeaters and branching units are developed using components qualified for undersea systems, This means that they are designed and built to our very high specifications, which includes very stringent selection processes.

All equipment, whether in the submerged plant or in the terminal stations, features redundant configurations for the most critical elements, offering automatic and seamless switching in the event of a component failure.

Finally, robust and flexible network architectures have been developed, essentially based on ring or mesh topologies, which offer a combination of protection switching and network restoration algorithms, to enhance network availability.

Efficient network management facilities

Alcatel has developed a complete network management product range, which can offer network operators fully integrated monitoring and management facilities over their networks, which can include both terrestrial and submarine segments.

Alcatel's network management product range is built using industry-standard software and hardware components, as well as standardised interfaces, and it offers operators a unique ease of use to manage their networks more efficiently. As a consequence, network availability and reliability is enhanced and can be monitored with greater accuracy and traceability, and network maintenance is greatly facilitated.