Rostelecom, AlcaTel Lucent to Deploy 100G Between Europe, Middle East

The 100G locomotive is gaining traction overseas for Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU, news, filings), which said yesterday that it is helping Russian telecommunications giant Rostelecom establish a ‘superfast connection’ between Europe and the Middle East. The upgrade will see coherent 100G technology put onto RosTelecom’s ‘North-South Transit’ route covering a 3,500km span of Russian territory.  That would add quite a bit of bandwidth

Rostelecom has been working hard to establish itself as the place to go for terrestrial links between Europe and the far corners of Asia, whereas historically it has been those submarine routes through the Red Sea that have carried most of the load. In August they detailed plans for fiber buildouts in the Trans-Baikal region out in Siberia as well.

According to Telecom Asia, part of Rostelecom’s motivation for today’s 100G plans comes from rising competition. China Telecom’s European division is also focusing on such trans-Asian connectivity including a London-Dubai link. Honestly, it’s about time the center of the largest continent finally gets connected in a big way.

Connectivity to Dubai has been coming up a lot lately. With several new cables coming online (EIG, Gulf Bridge) and these terrestrial efforts, Dubai seems to be emerging as the pre-eminent bandwidth hub of the region. Not that this should surprise anyone, given the general economic boom they’ve been having overall there.

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Categories: Internet Backbones · Telecom Equipment