Orange, Telxius team for terrestrial backhaul for Dunant submarine cable
France-based international communications service provider Orange and Telxius, the communications infrastructure company of the Telefónica Group, have agreed to provide each other with backhaul services in Europe and the United States, respectively, for the Dunant submarine cable. Orange operates a cable landing station in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez, France, that Dunant will use (see "Orange to supply landing station for Dunant submarine cable"), while Telxius operates a similar station in Virginia Beach, VA.
The agreement will see Orange provide Telxius terrestrial connections from the Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez cable landing station to Paris. On the other side of the Atlantic, Telxius will offer Orange a connection from Virginia Beach to the hub of Ashburn, VA. The collaboration will enable both companies to oversee multi-terabit capacity across the Atlantic that they can offer their respective customers.
Backed by Google, the 6,600-km Dunant transatlantic cable will connect the United States to the French Atlantic coast leveraging novel optical transmission technology (see “Google, SubCom, to deploy space-division multiplexing on Dunant submarine cable”). SubCom is performing the deployment (see "TE SubCom to deploy Dunant submarine cable system for Google"; TE subsequently sold SubCom to Cerberus Capital Management). The submarine cable network is expected to be ready for service later this year.
“We are pleased to announce this agreement with Telxius, which will allow us to provide our customers with very high capacity end-to-end services, as well as network redundancy, on the strategic transatlantic route. We will be operating two fiber pairs of over 30 Tbps between France and the USA. It is a valuable extension to Orange’s global network joining our Atlantic and Mediterranean routes to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia with guaranteed best in class quality of service,” said Jerome Barré, CEO of Orange Wholesale and International Networks.
“This agreement confirms our commitment to provide the best services to our partners and customers, offering the latest technology, diverse routes and best latency. We are pleased to join forces with Orange on this new route which in combination with our existing MAREA system puts Telxius in an excellent position in the strategic Europe – US route,” added Mario Martín, Telxius CEO.
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Stephen Hardy | Editorial Director and Associate Publisher, Lightwave
Stephen Hardy is editorial director and associate publisher of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report, part of the Lighting & Technology Group at Endeavor Business Media. Stephen is responsible for establishing and executing editorial strategy across the both brands’ websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products. He has covered the fiber-optics space for more than 20 years, and communications and technology for more than 35 years. During his tenure, Lightwave has received awards from Folio: and the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) for editorial excellence. Prior to joining Lightwave in 1997, Stephen worked for Telecommunications magazine and the Journal of Electronic Defense.
Stephen has moderated panels at numerous events, including the Optica Executive Forum, ECOC, and SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. He also is program director for the Lightwave Innovation Reviews and the Diamond Technology Reviews.
He has written numerous articles in all aspects of optical communications and fiber-optic networks, including fiber to the home (FTTH), PON, optical components, DWDM, fiber cables, packet optical transport, optical transceivers, lasers, fiber optic testing, and more.
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