Xtera to supply Gulf to Africa submarine cable system

Xtera Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: XCOM) says it has signed a supply agreement with Omantel, the national operator of Oman, to support construction of the Gulf to Africa (G2A) submarine cable system. The new submarine network will run from Salalah in Oman to Bosaso in Somalia and Berbera in Somaliland, with a terrestrial extension to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.

Ethio Telecom (Ethiopia), Golis Telecom (Puntland, Somalia), and Telesom Co. (Somaliland) will partner with Omantel to support construction and operation of the new fiber-optic network. G2A is expected to be ready for service in the fourth quarter of this year and offer a total initial design capacity of 20 Tbps.

"This is the first step on our expansion journey into Africa, where we will go from Oman directly to Somalia and then extend the cable further into Africa to Ethiopia," said Sohail Qadir, vice president of Omantel Wholesale. "These two highly under-served countries will soon be connected to our international low-latency network, gain access to all the content hosted in Oman with Omantel, and consume services from Europe and Southeast Asia."

As stated, the undersea cable section of the system will run from Salalah, Oman, to both Bosaso in Somalia and Berbera in Somaliland. A terrestrial route will run from Salalah through Oman to link with all of Omantel's nine (soon to be 12) submarine cable systems. Omantel will offer access to G2A to a variety of customers, including the content and cloud providers in Oman serving the Middle East region from Omantel's central hubs in Oman.

Xtera will supply several elements of its 100-Gbps submarine cable system portfolio, including subsea optical repeaters, Nu-Wave Optima Submarine Line Terminal Equipment (SLTE), fiber-optic cable, and all marine services.

For more information on high-speed transmission systems and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer's Guide.