BACKGROUNDER

Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks

MAY, 2013

Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks Backgrounder

Crossing Oceans to Connect the Planet

1.1 Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks The globalization of the economy and the growth of the internet have enhanced worldwide communications. As the oceans cover more than 70% of the Earth, submarine cable networks have become data highways connecting continents and remote areas of the world. Whether located in a remote African village or in a small Australian outback community, end-users can rely on stable telecommunications connections to enquire about the wider world and make their contribution to it. The convergence of services (broadband internet + video on demand + voice) has become a significant reality. Telecom operators, service providers, enterprises and offshore entities rely on submarine networks to run their voice, data and internet communication. Meeting their requirements calls for reliability, a field-proven product portfolio and turnkey experience to address any sea environment, as well as technology innovation capabilities: thats Alcatel-Lucent, the world leader in submarine cable networks!

Figure 1: Global Submarine Cable Network Map

From network upgrades to new deployments, from regional to transcontinental networks, Alcatel-Lucent provides every part of a global transmission network, all tailored to its customers needs. A comprehensive service portfolio completes its turnkey offering for the submarine business, including dry and wet operations and maintenance.
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Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks Backgrounder

Leveraging over 150 years of experience in the submarine business, Alcatel-Lucent leads the industry in terms of: Capacity multi-terabit capacity per cable using the latest dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) technology Installed base - with over 500,000 km of submarine networks.

As a system manufacturer and turnkey supplier owning a fleet of seven cable ships and offering a comprehensive range of marine services, Alcatel-Lucent is the perfect partner to design reliable and costeffective solutions that are easy to operate and maintain.

2 The Industry Leader in Multi-Gigabit Undersea Connections

With the most successful track record in the industry, Alcatel-Lucents research facilities (Bell Labs) have continuously led the development of new technologies enabling substantial network capacity increases to assist operators in meeting their end-users service demands over time. Whether it is traditional voice traffic or new broadband services, Alcatel-Lucents submarine cable networks enable seamless service delivery over a single, managed infrastructure. As a system manufacturer and turnkey supplier owning a fleet of seven cable ships and offering a comprehensive range of marine services, Alcatel-Lucent is the perfect partner to design reliable and costeffective solutions that are easy to operate and maintain. Alcatel-Lucents advanced solutions target both traditional and emerging market segments, as described below. 2.1 Transoceanic & Regional Submarine Networks Alcatel-Lucents transoceanic solutions are developed to meet the most challenging long-haul applications transporting up to terabit/s capacities, while regional solutions are developed to address regional scale medium capacity applications in an optimized way. Their flexibility and scalability help service providers meet the needs for increased capacity to transport growing broadband traffic loads efficiently and cost-effectively, as well as to connect all territories and islands to the worldwide internet backbone.

Transoceanic

Transoceanic with branching units

Regional with branching units

Figure 2: Examples of System Configurations

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Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks Backgrounder

2.2 Submarine Network Upgrades Spurred by the need to provide an adequate level of connectivity to support bandwidth-hungry enterprise and consumer media services, the submarine network upgrade market is evolving rapidly. The successful upgrade of an installed submarine network requires a unique mix of skills and features including a very accurate analysis of system design, flexible and powerful submarine line terminal equipment (SLTE), and an experienced commissioning team. Alcatel-Lucents solution for submarine network upgrades can satisfy new service requirements on installed cables to transport wavelengths, SONET/SDH and Ethernet-based services at bit-rates from low to 10G, 40G and 100G. Offering highly advanced features and a variety of modulation formats optimized to upgrade existing systems to the highest capacity, Alcatel-Lucents upgrade solutions deliver the lowest price per transported bit. Upgradability tests can be performed on in-house test-beds to simulate the target system performance, or using specially designed portable test equipment. 2.3 Unrepeatered Submarine Networks Alcatel-Lucent designs unrepeatered submarine cable networks that offer the best performance versus cost ratio and provide a wide range of protection and armoring capabilities to suit any installation environment or sea floor condition. The key elements of an Alcatel-Lucent solution are derived from high performance repeatered terminal technology and highly robust repeatered cable technology. Because there are no active submerged electronics, they offer cost-effective alternatives to microwave and satellite-based options, using different channel rates depending on system capacity and distance requirements. Up to 1.6Tbit/s per fiber pair can be achieved with 10Gbit/s channels, and even more using higher bit rate channels.

Network Management Terminal Station Equipment

Terminal Equipment

SDH Equipment

Survey/Lay/Maintenance Vessel

o not t

s ca le

Branching Unit

Armoured Submarine Cable Non-armoured Submarine Cable ROPA

Figure 3: An Unrepeatered System

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Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks Backgrounder

2.4 Offshore Solutions In the energy industry, offshore plants are increasingly being located at greater distances from on-shore installations. Submarine fiber optic cable systems offer an efficient shared infrastructure to provide reliable, quality communications to each connected facility. These systems provide an alternative to satellite or radio connections, with several key advantages flexibility, reliability, robustness to environmental hazards, and provide better quality communication services that can enhance operational effectiveness and safety. Submarine fiber optics networks offer the greatest versatility for transport of large volumes of data. This makes them the ideal transport medium for communications between offshore and onshore oil and gas facilities. In the oil and gas field, Alcatel-Lucent announced the signature of an agreement with Statoil to codesign and deliver a solution incorporating high-bandwidth communications and electrical power supply into subsea control systems for offshore oil and gas production facilities. The solution will address tiebacks connections from offshore/onshore production facilities to subsea equipment - for oil and gas recovery.

3 Marine
Careful and experienced planning and implementation of marine operations is critical to the success and long-term reliability of a submarine cable network. The operations cover a wide range of activities throughout the life of a project. Key aspects to a successful cable installation are thorough planning by experienced and knowledgeable personnel: with 150 years of experience, Alcatel-Lucent has the inhouse skills and expertise to manage even the most complex projects on a turnkey basis. These operations are performed using Alcatel-Lucents fleet of cable ships, which are fully equipped with high engine power, thrusters, and dynamic positioning to allow vessels to maintain position and work in any almost weather conditions. The vessels are also equipped with high-tow force heavy duty ploughs, providing a superior plough burial solution, and cable lay control systems. Automatic logs of all critical operational parameters are recorded including navigational data, speed, tension, slack, cable counter and plough data. All vessels utilize fully redundant GPS navigation and positioning systems, which provide real time vessel positioning to an accuracy of better than 10 meters.

3.1 Alcatel-Lucent Fleet

Alcatel-Lucent has seven vessels for installation and maintenance of submarine networks: In the highly competitive telecommunications market, experience and expertise are crucial but they are not always available within a telecom operators organization. Recognizing these needs, Alcatel-Lucent has developed a range of services to support operators from initial planning to maintenance of installed submarine cable networks.

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Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks Backgrounder

3.2 Marine Maintenance

The Alcatel-Lucent Marine Maintenance Centre (MMC) manages submarine cable systems through marine maintenance service agreements. Such agreements bring together system owners/operators and cable ship operators proposing their services for cable repairs and maintenance. Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks manages a number of private marine maintenance service agreements in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

4 Track Record
Alcatel-Lucent has been involved in most of the major submarine projects over the past five years. 4.1 Asia-Pacific

Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) -100 Gigabit-per-second (100G) submarine cable system to connect Oman, the United Arab Emirates, India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia. 8000km to enhance the robustness and reliability of international connectivity into and out of the six countries. Transpacific system Upgrade major upgrade of 9,600km submarine cable system using advanced coherent technology to provide connectivity from the Japanese east coast and California. Australia-Singapore for ASC International - New 4,8000km multi-terabit system, with an option for 100G transmission design, providing the first open access from Western Australia to South East Asia and supporting high performance data networking services Asia America Gateway (AAG) - the first ever direct connection between Southeast Asia and the U.S.A, spanning over 20,000 km. Telstra Endeavour - a 9,000 km submarine network connecting Sydney to Hawaii supporting
Telstras network transformation strategy.

Gondwana-1 for OPT in New Caledonia connecting Nouma to Sydney. An unrepeatered link will also connect Poindimi, on the New Caledonian East coast, to the Loyalty Islands

4.2 Africa and the Indian Ocean

ACE a 17,000 km submarine cable system from South Africa to France linking 20 countries..
Designed for 40G transmission the link will deliver super fast broadband communications between the African continent and Europe and will bring broadband optical data connectivity for the first time to Mauritania, Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sao Tome and Principe, and Equatorial Guinea. Planned to go into service in 2012

SEA-ME-WE 4 the initial roll-out and further upgrades of this network nearly spanning 20,000 km and linking 14 countries from France to Singapore. Alcatel-Lucent had the turnkey responsibility of this state-of-the-art network for segments 2, 3, and 4 linking Mumbai to Marseilles, as well as the overall end-to-end responsibility for the synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) equipment. Upgrade to 40G was announced in February 2011. SAT-3/WASC system - linking Portugal to South Africa with branches to Spain, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon and Angola. EASSy - a 10,000 km submarine network linking eight countries on the east coast of Africa from
Sudan to South Africa. Kenya-United Arab Emirates cable for the East Africa Marine System (TEAMS) consortium - spanning 4,900 km to connect Mombassa in Kenya to Fujairah in the UAE.

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Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks Backgrounder

WACS - the first direct connection between South Africa and Europe. This 14,000 km submarine network will open access to faster connectivity to support innovative IP-based services such as video for e-education and healthcare applications. The systems inauguration is on May 11. The UKPortugal Upgrade uses with 40G coherent SLTE. LION - connecting Toamasina in Madagascar to SainteMarie in La Runion and Terre Rouge in
Mauritius via a link of approximately 1000 km.

SEAS - new 1,900km submarine cable network linking Seychelles and Tanzania.

4.3 Mediterranean Submarine and terrestrial links for Interoute - one submarine link connected the islands of Sardinia and Sicily to the Italian peninsula, a distance of around 377 km, and the other connected Sardinia to Lazio, a distance of more than 250 km.

Med Nautilus extension and upgrade to improve connectivity in the Mediterranean by enhancing the
hub in Cyprus.

Middle East - North Africa (MENA) cable for Orascom Telecom, positioning Egypt as a central hub for traffic transit between Europe, the Middle East and Asia. It spans 3,850 km, delivering an ultimate capacity of 5.76 Tbit/s. TE North system for Telecom Egypt - spanning 3,100 km, TE North started with ultimate capacity of 128 x 10 on each of its eight fiber pairs, which makes it one of the largest cable systems in the region. Now in service using Alcatel-Lucent 40G coherent technology.
India-Middle East-Western Europe (IMEWE) system - a consortium-owned submarine cable network linking Mumbai in India to Marseilles in France, spanning approximately 13,000 km.

Atlas Offshore for Maroc Telecom - linking the cities of Asilah in Morocco to Marseille in France, over more than 1,630 km. It directly interconnects Maroc Telecom with the various European operators to support the growth and convergence of fixed and mobile services, offering advanced restoration capabilities for the existing Eurafrica submarine system. Europe India Gateway (EIG) the first direct, high-bandwidth optical-fiber submarine cable system
from the United Kingdom to India.

Bezeq International new high-speed (40G) submarine cable system between Israel and Europe using coherent technology.

4.4 Atlantic Ocean Pacific Caribbean Cable System - a 100G cable system that will span 6000 km from Florida to Ecuador. The PCCS will have an ultimate design capacity of 80 Terabit-per-second.

Amrica Mvil 1 (AMX-1 System) - the worlds first 17,500km submarine cable system specifically designed for 100Gigabit per second (100G) transmission. The system will connect seven countries with eleven landing points in the United States, Colombia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Guatemala. MAYA-1 upgrade ,400km distance from Florida, US, to Colombia quadrupling the data capacity to address growing demand for bandwidth-intensive services, as well as position the Caribbean as a critical hub for communications between North and South America. Canalink - a 2000 km submarine cable linking mainland Spain to Tenerife, Gran Canaria and La Palma in the
Canary Islands.

Completion of the upgrade for Ois GlobeNet - a 22,000 kilometer submarine cable system linking the United States with Latin America. This project, the second upgrade in 18 months, enables GlobeNet to deliver an additional 110 Gbit/s of capacity per fiber pair.
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Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks Backgrounder

Fibralink Extension - reconnecting Haiti to the global economy through broadband services. The country is set to receive a major boost with the delivery of a 200km undersea cable which will link the country to the world via internet connectivity. The project is led by Digicel in conjunction with Columbus Networks. San Andres system a 815 km submarine cable network linking Colombian mainland to San Andres
island. Alcatel-Lucent was selected in consortium with IT International Telecom.

Moldonado Las Toninas: In consortium with IT Telecom, Alcatel-Lucent was selected by Antel to
construct a new submarine cable network linking Maldonado (Uruguay) to Las Toninas (Argentina) spanning 250 km with a design capacity of 3.84 Tbits/s.

Greenland Connect network for Tele Greenland - a 4,600 kilometer submarine cable network linking
Greenland to Iceland and Canada.

FibraLink for Columbus Communications - provides festoon and terrestrial connectivity from Kingston to Ocho Rios and Montego Bay in Jamaica. GCN (Global Caribbean Network), MCN (Middle Caribbean Network) and SCF (Southern Caribbean
Fiber) network - bringing high-speed broadband connectivity required to generate new opportunities of economic growth and development in the Caribbean Islands.

4.5 Science Applications Alcatel-Lucent has paved the way by adapting its submarine technology to provide innovative solutions for scientific networks including:

NEMO undersea neutrino telescope project for Istituto Nazionale di Fisico Nucleare (INFN) in Italy NEPTUNE Canada - the North East Pacific Time-Series Undersea Networked Experiments project
required a large subsea cabled observatory for Canadas University of Victoria with specialized science nodes.

5 Heritage
With more than 500,000 kilometers of submarine cable networks and 6000 repeaters deployed, AlcatelLucent has the largest heritage of submarine cable systems, starting from the very first days of the industry over 150 years ago. Whether for short, medium capacity regional applications or multi-terabit transoceanic systems, AlcatelLucent has the capabilities to meet submarine networking challenges of any size.

6 Awards
In April 2010, Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks Limited received the Queens Award for Enterprise: International Trade 2010. In addition to its impact on bringing broadband worldwide, Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks was specifically recognized for the substantial increase in revenues generated over a sustained period of time. The Queens Awards are the UKs most prestigious awards for business performance and are administered by the Queens Awards Office. For more information visit: www.queensawards.org.uk

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