Huawei Marine Networks, a global submarine network provider, announced completion of the West Africa Cable System (WACS) Upgrade II.
A press release from the joint venture between the Chinese firm Huawei Technologies and the British company Global Marine Systems said that the project was signed in February 2018 and successfully put into commercial use in October of the same year.
The upgrade realized 32*100G wavelengths configured on the longest optically amplified single fiber span stretching 11500km from South Africa to Portugal.
As the longest 100G submarine cable system in Africa, WACS has two network operation centers and 15 landing points in 14 countries spanning West Africa and Europe. At the contract signing ceremony, the WACS consortium recognized Huawei's achievements in delivering WACS Upgrade I and looked forward to the successful delivery of WACS Upgrade II.
New technologies and high integration design concepts were adopted in WACS Upgrade II through the use of Flex Grid and Optical pass-through technologies to meet the high-capacity demands. Optical pass-through transmission optimizes the performance limit and minimizes the system cost.
Demonstrating multi-country end-to-end delivery capabilities, Huawei Marine has set an industry benchmark for the world's longest 100G system by successfully completing this upgrade.
Ma Yanfeng, Vice President of Huawei Marine said, “The WACS Consortium selected Huawei Marine to expand the system’s capacity, and looking once again to Huawei Marine verified our product solution capabilities, quality, and process improvement capabilities. Thanks to the WACS Consortium for its trust in Huawei Marine. We will continue to accumulate experience from the project and strive to improve connections between Africa and the world.”