Upgraded West African Cable System up and running

Huawei Marine Networks team works on WACS upgrade.
Huawei Marine Networks team works on WACS upgrade. | Contributed photo
Global submarine network provider Huawei Marine Networks Co. Ltd. said recently that a 9,028-mile upgrade of the West African Cable System (WACS) is now up and running.

“Thanks to the efficiency and expertise of Huawei Marine’s delivery team, coupled with their leading-edge transmission technology, the WACS upgrade was completed smoothly and on time, fulfilling our ongoing commitment to our customers,” WACS Consortium Management Committee Chair Vishen Maharaj said.

WACS began operations in 2012, using 10G technology with a design capacity of 5.12Tbit/s. With the upgrade, the system is now using 100G technology and Soft Decision-Forward Error Correction (SD-FEC), and the design capacity has been increased to 14.5Tbit/s.

“The increasing reliance on Internet and mobile applications, high-definition video, and other data-intensive applications such as cloud services are fundamental drivers underpinning the increasing demand for bandwidth,” Mike Constable, Huawei Marine's CEO, said. “The additional capacity now available on the WACS submarine cable will greatly enrich international communications, in turn further stimulating economic development in the West Africa region and the communities it serves.”

A coalition of 18 international and regional carriers owns and operates WACS.



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