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| Tyco
Submarine Systems LTD:
The First To Benefit From Lucent Technologies' Undersea Lasers |
| Tyco
Submarine Systems Ltd. (TSSL) has signed a $150 million contract with
Lucent Technologies for the delivery
of undersea pump laser modules over the next two years. Developed by Bell
Laboratories, the modules are said to boost by eight times the voice and
data capacity of the undersea fiber-optic cable system, through the use
of chips made from aluminum gallium indium arsenide. The chips are produced
by Uniphase Laser Enterprises, a division of Uniphase
Corporation.
"The skyrocketing demand for capacity caused by the Internet and global telecom network growth is driving the need for major advances in undersea systems," said Neil Garvey, president of TSSL. "This latest breakthrough allows us to deliver increased capacity to our customers for the undersea communications systems they will deploy around the world." The pump laser modules are optical amplifiers, sometimes referred to as repeaters, which will be installed along a fiber-optic cable route. They are designed to provide the energy needed to boost the transmission signal and increase the cable's capacity. According to Lucent, the new modules will allow the fibers to carry more information and more channels through reduced noise . An integral part of the module is a semiconductor laser chip -- also referred to as 980-nanometer laser technology -- for the color of light that these lasers produce. Pump lasers operating in the 980-nanometer range make possible cleaner signals than the 1,480-nanometer laser currently used in other repeaters. The new pumps have operated for the last two years in land-based applications, but have not existed long enough to demonstrate the 29-year life span standard demanded by undersea use. TSSL will first place the Lucent modules on the MAYA-1, a cable system scheduled to go into service in March 2000. MAYA-1 will also be using the Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology. This is designed to maximize bandwidth, allowing for a high capacity in its initial use and for ease of increasing capacity later on. The system will connect the United States, Cayman Islands, Honduras, Panama, Mexico, and others in the Caribbean Basin.
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