AAE-1 Cable System Comes into Force

The AAE-1 Consortium, owners of the Asia-Africa-Europe-1 submarine cable spanning approximately 25,000 km connecting Asia, Middle East, Africa and Europe; and TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, today announced that the contract for the majority of segments of the AAE-1 system has come into force.

AAE-1 will link Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe with low latency, high capacity transmission.  Each trunk fiber-pair in  AAE-1 segments supplied by TE SubCom has a cross-sectional capacity of minimum 80 x 100Gbps and each branch is implemented with optical add/drop multiplexing (OADM) nodes containing TE SubCom’s industry leading OADM wavelength re-use technology.

The unique cable system will contribute significantly to the volume growth in the involved countries and will eventually connect more than 40% of the world’s population.  When completed, the AAE-1 system will connect landings in Hong Kong SAR, (China), Vietnam, Cambodia, Kuala Kurau (Malaysia), Satun (Thailand), Mumbai (India), Karachi (Pakistan), Al Bustan (Oman), Fujairah (UAE), Doha (Qatar), Aden (Yemen), Djibouti, Jeddah (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), Zafarana and Abu Talat (Egypt), Chania (Greece), Marseille (France), plus other landings under development.

“With its unique, low-latency short route and high capacity, AAE-1 will link all major South East Asian countries to Africa and Europe via the Middle East, offering customers unmatched capacity thus stimulating exponential ICT-based business growth,” said Mr. Troy Yunfeng LI, AAE-1 MC Chair. “As a leader in the submarine cable industry, we are confident that TE SubCom will deliver this highly advanced cable with world-class implementation.”

“Our company’s technology portfolio and extensive installation experience makes us an ideal supplier for the AAE-1 system,” said John Mitchell, President, TE SubCom. “AAE-1 is one of the most extensive cable systems ever launched. TE SubCom is honored to have been chosen as the supplier of this unique project. We look forward to assisting the AAE-1 consortium achieve their success.”

The AAE-1 submarine cable spanning approximately 25,000 km, will be one of the first unique cable systems connecting Asia, Middle East, Africa and Europe and will provide an alternative low latency route between the Far East and Europe, with the Middle East and Africa as key mid-system hubs. Its completion will provide additional protection and diversity to the existing heavily congested cable systems.  

AAE-1 will deploy 100Gbps technology with wavelength add/drop branching units along the lowest latency route with design capacity of over 40 terabits. AAE-1 is one of the largest cable systems launched and will stimulate an exponential business growth in participating countries by providing robust, reliable and lowest latency connectivity. Additionally, having two diversified Points of Presence (PoP) in Asia (Hong Kong and Singapore) and diverse onward connectivity options in Europe (France and Greece) will provide the requisite flexibility for these carriers and their customers.

The target completion date for AAE-1 cable construction is 2016. When completed, it will connect Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Yemen, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece, France and other potential destinations.

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