Alcatel (News - Alert) is going down …. under the sea, that is.

The network solutions provider this week announced that it has signed contracts to build two separate submarine networks – one in the Pacific, the other in the Atlantic.

Wouldn’t Poseidon be proud?

First, Alcatel announced today that it had signed a turnkey contract valued at 42 million (EURO) with the Post & Telecommunications Office (OPT) of New Caledonia to build a submarine network connecting New Caledonia and Australia. The optical network, which will link Nouméa, in New Caledonia, to Sydney, Australia, is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2008. The upgrade will substantially increase the capacity of OPT’s network and enable to it to deliver next generation services.

The new submarine network will interconnect with international routes towards Europe and the U.S. An unrepeatered link will also connect Poindimié, on the New Caledonian East coast, to the Loyalty Islands.

”With the deployment a new submarine cable network, OPT will be able to offer international connectivity and to develop new, high-speed services such as Triple Play (News - Alert) and third-generation UMTS HSDPA mobile services,” stated Jean-Yves Ollivaud, president of OPT NC, in a press release. “Alcatel’s solution will allow us to provide a wide range of diversified services, while guaranteeing continuity in their delivery.”

Second, Alcatel (the salty old dog) announced yesterday that it is building a new submarine cable network for South Caribbean Fiber (SCF), a subsidiary of the LORET Group.

Scheduled for completion in mid-2007, the network extension will connect Antigua, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, St. Vincent, Barbados, Grenada and Trinidad. In addition, it will interconnect with two other networks - the Global Caribbean Network (GCN), linking Guadeloupe to Puerto Rico and the Virgin islands, through the St. Martin and the St. Barthelemy islands, and the Middle Caribbean Network (MCN), which links Martinique and Dominica. Both the GCN and MCN are subsidiaries of LORET Group.

The all-IP network will have greatly increased capacity and will span about 1,000 km. Combined with the GCN and MCN, the entire network will span 2,100 km.

The new network will deliver next generation services to both businesses and residential users in the Caribbean. The LORET Group hopes it “will generate new opportunities of economic growth and development in the region” (but then again, that’s what everyone hopes for when they sink a bundle into network infrastructure, isn’t it?).

“Through this extension, we are moving one step ahead to connect 14 islands of the Caribbean, from Trinidad to St. Croix and Puerto Rico, and from there directly to Miami,” said Ehsan Emami, president of GCN, MCN and SCF, in a press release. “The next-generation submarine network will provide broadband network capacity at economical pricing for the next 20 years or more.”

Alcatel also helped build the GCN and MCN submarine networks.

”Following the GCN and MCN awards, we are pleased to again contribute to fulfill the escalating demand for broadband services of Caribbean’s business and residential users,” said Jean Godeluck, president of Alcatel’s submarine network activity. “This achievement further validates Alcatel’s expertise in deploying field-proven solutions that offer reliable optical connectivity for faster and more cost-effective communications.”

Both deployments will use Alcatel’s next generation dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) submarine line terminal and its Optical Multi-Service Node (OMSN) systems for terrestrial applications. Alcatel will also furnish unrepeatered systems for both networks.

In the case of the SCF deployment, the Alcatel 1350 management suite will manage all the equipment. For this project, Alcatel will also provide marine and terrestrial installation services, and will handle commissioning and integration.

The OPT network will feature Alcatel’s 1620 Light Manager (LM). To lay the cable for this project, Alcatel will use its Ile de Ré cable ship, based at Nouméa. Alcatel will provide post installation services for this deployment as well.

With more than 461,500 km of installed submarine networks and hundreds of thousands of terrestrial systems deployed across the world, Alcatel is leading the worldwide optical networking market for the fifth year running according to industry analyst firm Ovum-RHK. From single network elements to integrated, modular network solutions, from city-to-city to transcontinental networks, Alcatel provides every part of a global transmission network.

With Alcatel’s DWDM optical submarine systems, these submarine networks can deliver speeds of up to 8.4 Tbit/s for long-haul systems, and 10 Tbit/s for short-haul systems – enough bandwidth to handle more than 120 million simultaneous phone calls, 16,000 CD-ROMs or 1,600 high definition movies.

Alcatel has been involved in most of the major submarine projects recently launched such as Sea-Me-We 4, FALCON, Sea-Me-We 3 upgrade, Global Caribbean Network, Orascom Telecom, Columbus Communications, Neptune (scientific observatory in Canada).

And Alcatel can handle repairs to these networks, too. In 2003 the company set a new record when it successfully repaired a trans-Pacific cable system, approximately 700 km off the coast of Japan, in water depths of approximately 9,400 meters. It is the deepest repair job done to date.

For more information about Alcatel, visit www.alcatel.com.

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Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.