ACE Submarine Cable System Partners with Ciena to Upgrade Africa–Europe Route to Over 30 Tbps

en.Wedoany.com Reported - The Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable consortium announced that it has selected Ciena to carry out a new round of system upgrades, deploying the 6500 optical transport platform and WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) coherent optical technology on the existing ACE submarine cable infrastructure to increase the system's transmission capacity to more than 30 Tbps. The ACE submarine cable is approximately 17,000 km long, with 18 landing stations, connecting markets along the routes of Western Europe, West Africa, and Southern Africa.

The ACE system is approximately 17,000 km long and has 18 landing stations. This upgrade will deploy Ciena's 6500 platform equipped with WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e), providing more than 30 Tb/s of capacity. According to the plan, the upgrade will expand bandwidth on the existing infrastructure while minimizing disruption to in-service traffic.

The route serves a region covering more than 500 million people, and the upgrade is intended to meet the rising connectivity demand within this area. Ciena Services is deploying WL6e on ACE's existing submarine line terminal equipment, enabling the system to achieve capacity expansion without complex traffic migration.

Philippe Recco, Chairman of the ACE Management Committee, said that international routes drive Africa's economic growth, digital inclusion, and cloud adoption, and that this upgrade provides regional service providers with a high-capacity channel covering more than 500 million people; Ciena's coherent optical technology and services team give the consortium confidence to meet growing bandwidth demand while keeping customers connected.

As ACE prepares for growing demand for resilient connectivity within Africa and between Africa and Europe, Ciena Services will also be responsible for the ongoing maintenance and modification of the system.

Thomas Soerenson, Vice President of Ciena's Global Submarine Business, said that Ciena leverages its submarine deployment expertise and coherent optical technology innovation to support this important link connecting Africa with the rest of the world; together, the two parties are expanding the existing submarine cable infrastructure and developing a long-term technology roadmap to achieve future growth with minimal operational impact.

The consortium will also adopt Ciena's Navigator Network Control Suite to improve service visibility and strengthen management. Its Liquid Spectrum applications, including Channel Margin Gauge, provide real-time visibility into wavelength signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) margins, helping ACE identify opportunities to increase capacity.

This modernization also introduces greater automation and visibility, enabling operators to plan future network expansion and manage services more efficiently while keeping the existing infrastructure unchanged.