Displaying items by tag: fiber optic cable

Newly appointed Chairman of the Turk Telecom International (TTI) Group Management Board, Mehmet Toros, has underlined that the organization's main focus is to generate new sales and enhance business cooperation on the newly launched matchless PoP 'SEA-ME-WE-5' underwater cable system.

Turk Telecom International is a leading telecommunications firm in the Middle East, Asia, Turkey, CIS and Eastern Europe. It provides a full range of infrastructure, connectivity, internet and wholesale voice services to incumbents, alternative carriers, mobile operators, internet service providers, content providers and corporate customers.

In an interview, Mr. Toros spoke about the ambitious 'SEA-ME-WE-5' project which brings together 19 operators in 18 countries connecting three continents. It is a global milestone in the telecommunications industry which will open up new opportunities for greater trade and economic growth; plus strengthen ties among multiple countries and people of various cultures. With its state of the art technology, SEA-ME-WE-5 presents matchless communication quality along its route from Asia to Western Europe.

Can you outline the current company structure in relations to mergers, and take us through the process over the last twelve months?

Turk Telecom International is the international arm of the Turk Telecom parent company (which is the incumbent operator in Turkey) and it also has mobile, broadband departments and broadband infrastructure. However, Turk Telecom International is involved mainly in wholesale voice and data business internationally on behalf of Turk Telecom.

One of the main offices in Turk Telecom International is based in Budapest, but we have technical teams and our state-of-the art NOC center in Austria and our management offices are located in Istanbul. Last year, there were some changes at management level, not only in Turk Telecom International, but also in Turk Telecom parent company. The group CEO and the VPs have been changed in Turk Telecom, and I have been appointed as the Chairman of the Management Board of Turk Telecom International Group.

We have also replaced the CTO and CBSO have changed our organizational structure - we merged our chief marketing and chief sales officer under the title of chief commercial officer. In addition, we have appointed a Managing Director at Turk Telecom International to be responsible for mainly technical and operational issues which may arise within the organization. Turk Telecom International has entities and representatives in sixteen different countries.

What can you tell us about your footprint in the markets - let's start with the Middle East and Africa, and then let's examine your presence in the Asian market?

The Middle East is one of the most important markets for Turk Telecom International - we have initiatives and joint-operations with consultants in the Middle East. The biggest project we launched as part of the SEA-ME-5 Consortium was the unique and matchless SEA-ME-WE-5 subsea cable system. Turk Telecom International started to investigate long submarine cables, and we subsequently decided to join the SEA-ME-WE-5 consortium.

The SEA-ME-WE-5 submarine cables systems were deployed in December 2016 - and I'd like to express my gratitude to my colleagues in the marketing communication department at Turk Telecom International, because Turk Telecom International has recently been awarded to manage all marketing communications related tasks of the SEA-ME-WE-5 consortium.

In February, TTI hosted very successfully the SEA-ME-WE-5 Project Launch Celebration Event in Istanbul. With the completion of this advanced and innovative project, Turkey now has adequate infrastructure to meet the country's rising data demand at an initial capacity of 24 Tbps.

We made an investment of around $50m in the SEA-ME-WE-5 subsea cable systems and we have other initiatives in and around the Middle East. In relation to Africa we are focusing on Eastern Africa. In Asia, southern Asia we're going to reach throughout the SEA-ME-WE-5 underwater cable system and capacities.

Angola Cables and NEC Corporation announced that the contract to build the South Atlantic Cable System (SACS), the first subsea fiber optic cable system ever to connect Africa and South America in the southern hemisphere has come into force. SACS is scheduled to be ready for service by the middle of 2018. The project cost is expected to reach $160 million and will be partially co-funded by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) with the support of Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI) through the Banco de Desenvolvimento de Angola (BDA).

 

In order to meet growing demand from broadband, mobile, broadcasting and enterprise traffic crossing the South Atlantic, SACS will feature the latest high quality 4-fiber-pair cable and optical transmission technologies with an initial design capacity of 40Tb/s (100Gb/s x 100 wavelengths x 4 fiber-pairs).

 

The cable system will land at Sangano cable landing station in Angola, near the capital city of Luanda, and in a datacenter in Fortaleza, Brazil, which, will be built for the cable systems that are under construction by Angola Cables.

 

SACS will connect Luanda, Angola and Fortaleza, Brazil, directly linking the African continent to Latin America for the first time, spanning more than 6,200 km across the South Atlantic, enabling high speed and large capacity international data transmissions. From Fortaleza, SACS can be connected to another cable system which stretches to Miami Florida, enabling Angola and Africa to connect directly with the USA.

 

SACS will feature the latest optical technologies to provide the most advanced subsea telecommunications system, coupled with a control plane based on innovative Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technology to serve bandwidth-intensive applications. SACS will have an initial design capacity of 40Tpbs (100Gbps x 100 wavelengths x 4 fiber pairs).

 

"Our main objective is to improve the quality of communications between Africa and the Americas, creating a totally new route in the south hemisphere, providing term and peak capacity product offerings and support for the region's expanding data requirements of today and for tomorrow," says Antonio Nunes, CEO of Angola Cables. "SACS will be constructed using state-of-the-art technology, with 100G-coherent design for low latency, reliable delivery for even the most demanding bandwidth needs and direct data center to data center connectivity across the Atlantic."

 

"The South Atlantic Cable System is a unique cable system that will directly link Angola to Brazil and the rest of the world, and NEC Corporation prides itself to be the system supplier and would like to thank Angola Cables for giving NEC the chance to be part of this epoch-making cable," said Toru Kawauchi, General Manager at NEC's Submarine Network Division. "We would also like to extend our gratitude to JBIC, SMBC and NEXI, for providing the much needed financial support, without them SACS would not have been realized. As one of the world's top vendors of submarine cable systems, with more than 40 years of experience constructing over 200,000 kilometers of cable systems, NEC is committed to the successful completion of SACS and to building on our relationship with Angola Cables."