Subsea cable refastened with IT at Eastern Caribbean FS

DALLAS, USA: Eastern Caribbean Fiber System (ECFS) Consortium has selected Xtera Communications Inc. (Xtera), a provider of optical networking solutions, for the upgrade of its festoon subsea cable system.

ECFS subsea cable system is made of 10 segments, connecting Tortola in the British Virgin Islands to Trinidad at the south of the Caribbean arc. Xtera's Nu-Wave OptimaTM equipment is claimed to offer the possibility to mix 10G and 100G channel rates to support existing and emerging high-capacity services. Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Multiplexers (ROADMs) are used in cable landing stations to avoid or minimize the number of regeneration points for island-to-island connectivity.

The latest upgrade of ECFS, as per the announcement, continues the consortium's commitment to provide new and improved communication services to the region. The additional bandwidth, it adds, will allow significant improvement in Internet access for residents, tourists and business customers.

In addition, the network provides a robust backbone that allows wireless customers to communicate across islands and to the rest of the world. The participants of the ECFS consortium will enjoy increased flexibility to offer new bundled and unbundled services and are better positioned to take advantage in the growth of cloud services. ECFS selected Xtera Communications for the upgrade not simply because of its technical expertise with high capacity submarine systems, but because of their increased presence in the region," said Sam Wallerson, ECFS Chairman.