the Group boosts its broadband submarine transmission capacity throughout the world

Once again confirming its standing as a major player, France Telecom is contributing to the development of a high-quality global network using submarine cables for broadband transmission. The Group is providing its clients with additional capacity, chiefly to meet their IP traffic transmission requirements generated by the strong and sustained growth in broadband transmission between the various regions of the world.
During the last three months, France Telecom has increased its capacity on two major submarine cable systems : Sea-Me-We4 and TAT14.


Sea-Me-We4 : As a result of the upgrade, the capacity owned by France Telecom has increased by 140%
By joining forces with major international carriers, France Telecom is increasing its broadband transmission capacity by 140% with the deployment of the second upgrade of this submarine cable.
In less than three and a half years of service and following two upgrades, France Telecom has increased the initial capacity held in this cable tenfold, with the cable spanning a distance of 19,000 km from Singapore to Marseille, linking Asia to Europe, crossing the Mediterranean and providing 14 countries with broadband connections following its start-up in November 2005.
Additionally, in early 2010, IMEWE (which is jointly owned by France Telecom) will also be making its own valuable contribution to Sea-Me-We4. It should be remembered that the IMEWE cable system, which is currently being deployed, will be placed into commercial service in less than a year. This cable, with a design capacity of 3.84 Tbit/s, which will link Mumbai to Marseille running via the Gulf of Oman, the Middle East and Sicily, will enable France Telecom to keep pace with the high levels of growth experienced in the Indian subcontinent and traffic from this region, in addition to securing the traffic transiting via Sea-Me-We4 by offering an alternative route.
discover the route of Sea-Me-We4 and IMeWE cables
 
TAT14: with the implementation of the first upgrade, France Telecom has doubled its owned capacity on this transatlantic cable system
In partnership with four major European and North American carriers, France Telecom doubled its transmission capacity via TAT14 with the release for commercial use of the first upgrade of this submarine cable system, less than nine months after the contract was signed. The transatlantic lit capacity has been increased to 1.87 Tbit/s.
The TAT14 stretches 15,000 km linking five European countries: Germany (Norden), the UK (Widemouth), Denmark (Blaabjerg), France (Saint-Valéry-en-Caux) and the Netherlands (Katwijk) to the United States (Manasquan and Tuckerton, New Jersey), was placed into commercial service in 2001 by an international consortium comprising more than 50 telecommunications carriers. The design capacity of TAT14 is 3.2 Tbit/s, enabling the possibility for additional upgrades, of which a second is already being planned !
These three cables employ the best technology currently used in the submarine cable industry: Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM), offering the possibility to boost the capacity of the submarine cable according to requirements. During the upgrade, the submerged portion undergoes no modifications and only the terminal equipment is affected.
discover the route of TAT14 cable
 
the Group is also playing a major role in the construction of submarine cable systems
In addition to the IMEWE previously mentioned, the France Telecom group is also working with a number of international operators on the construction of a cable named ACE (Africa Coast to Europe ). With a distance of more than 14,000 km, this cable will extend from  France to South Africa and will offer high bandwidth broadband connectivity to the worldwide web to at least twenty-five countries on the eastern cost of Africa starting with Morocco.
Finally, the group is currently deploying a fibre-optic submarine cable which will bring broadband services to Madagascar. This 1800 km-long cable, called LION, will link Madagascar to the Sat3-Wasc-Safe already running through the region before the end of 2009. LION  will connect Madagascar to the rest of the world via Reunion Island and Mauritius, these being the two connection points for the Sat3-Wasc-Safe cable which itself links Europe and Asia passing via Southern Africa.
discover the route of LION and ACE cables

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network and information technology
maintenance of submarine cables