Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks (ASN), the undersea cables subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, has commissioned the Pacific Caribbean Cable System (PCCS), a 6000 km undersea cable linking Florida, in the US, to Ecuador.
In addition to Florida and Ecuador, the PCCS system connects the islands of Tortola, Puerto Rico, Aruba and Curacao, as well as Cartagena in Colombia, and Maria Chiquita and Balboa in Panama.
PCCS is owned by a group of telecommunications operators consisting of the US’ Cable & Wireless Communications, Aruba’s Setar, Ecuador’s Telconet, Spanish multinational Telefónica Global Solutions and Curacao’s United Telecommunication Services (UTS).
The cable has multi-channel 100-Gbps technology and an ultimate design capacity of 80-Tbps. It will underpin broadband services as demand is growing in the Caribbean, Central and South America for online content such as tourism related services, sports coverage and digital TV. The cable will also help reduce the risk of communications disruption by providing cable route diversity and alternative bandwidth access to existing cables in the region.
