By GlobeNet

GlobeNet, Oi's international subsidiary provider of submarine capacity, and Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) have signed a contract to extend the GlobeNet submarine cable system to Colombia, supporting the exploding demand for broadband services between Colombia, the United States, and other Latin American countries.

This 100 Gigabit per second (100G) capable link will help GlobeNet provide a significant increase in capacity to support the deployment of next-generation wireless services and support the exploding demand for broadband services such as streaming media, online gaming, high-definition video and social media applications. This 1000km extension will create a link with direct connectivity between Colombia and the United States, and between Colombia and Venezuela. It will have a state-of-the-art design that provides the capability of supporting a future ultimate design capacity in excess of 8 Tbit/s on each connectivity path.

The GlobeNet submarine cable system currently spans 22,000 kilometers with landing points in Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza in Brazil, Maiquetía in Venezuela, St. David's in Bermuda, Boca Raton Florida and Tuckerton in New Jersey, United States. With this extension which will land in Colombia's Atlantic coast, GlobeNet further positions to offer ultra-fast low latency services on both protected routes between the United States and Latin America.

Erick W. Contag, Chief Operating Officer at GlobeNet, said: “GlobeNet is committed to meeting the need for high-quality capacity to offer an improved experience for all of our customers. Our collaboration with Alcatel-Lucent is based on our confidence in the low latency, reliability and speed of their solution, as well as their ability to seamlessly and efficiently introduce this extension to Colombia while maintaining all our existing network services.”

Philippe Dumont, President Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, said: “We arepleased to be selected by GlobeNetto expand their network and deliver the capacity to support the hunger for exciting new applications and services to Colombia. This project further highlights our leadership in the development of powerful, cost-effective submarine networks, and the importance Alcatel-Lucent plays in realizing the potential of a connected world, keeping customers' costs in check”

The Alcatel-Lucent solution deployed for this project includes an integrated 100G capable wet plant of cable and high bandwidth repeaters, power feed equipment, and its 1620 Light Manager (LM) submarine line terminal equipped with advanced coherent technology and offering unique flexibility to increase direct connectivity between countries. Designed to accommodate 10G/40G/100G wavelengths in the same platform, the Alcatel-Lucent 1620 LM enables seamless capacity upgrade on flexible grid for channel spacing without traffic interruption.

About GlobeNet

GlobeNet provides International capacity between North and South America over a dual ring-protected submarine cable system serving Brazil, Bermuda, Colombia, the U.S.A., and Venezuela. Covering a distance of more than 22,000 kilometers, this sophisticated submarine cable network system is fully redundant and offers the lowest latency available between the Americas. The network links cable landing stations in Tuckerton, NJ and Boca Raton, FL, USA, with cable landing stations in Fortaleza (CE) and Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Brazil, St. David's, Bermuda as well as Maiquetía (Caracas) Venezuela. GlobeNet is a wholly owned subsidiary of Brazilian full-service telecommunications provider Oi.

About Oi

Oi is a pioneer company in the provision of bundled services in Brazil. A Oi offers local and long-distance voice transmission, mobile telephony, broadband and pay TV. In March 2012, the company had 70,8 million revenue generating units (RGUs). This total includes 44.1 million in personal mobile segment, 18.6 million in residential segment and 8.1 million in business/corporate segment.