WASACE shops for undersea cable/Motorola to debut VSN200 Optical Node at The Cable Show

WASACE Cable Co. says it has begun the process of selecting a cable system supplier for its planned undersea network that will link the United States with Africa, with links as well to Brazil and Europe.

WASACE says its plans to deploy 100-Gbps technology across three cable systems:

WASACE Americas will connect Brazil (Santos, Rio de Janeiro, and Fortaleza) to the U.S. (Florida).  WASACE Americas will also provide optional, on demand connectivity to Colombia, Panama, and South Carolina.
WASACE Africa will link Nigeria and South Africa to the USA. WASACE Africa also will offer optional, on demand connectivity to the Niger-Delta Oil and Gas region at Bonny Island and to Angola.
WASACE Europe will connect Florida to Virginia Beach and across the North Atlantic to San Sebastian, Spain.

Telecommunications consultants David Ross Group will administer the procurement process and lead the development of the project. WASACE says it has released the Invitation to Tender to four undersea telecommunications cable system suppliers. It expects to select the cable system supplier(s) for its network in July 2012.

Meanwhile, WASACE has retained two financial services companies, including Aterios Capital, as financial advisors to source funding for the project.

The company plans to develop the network in phases, beginning with the WASACE Americas and WASACE Africa cable systems, which are scheduled to be in service by the first quarter of 2014.

“We believe this project is timely and provides a unique opportunity for free flow of information and data between the two largest economies in the Americas (USA and Brazil), Africa’s largest economy (South Africa), and Africa’s fastest growing economy (Nigeria) as well as with the rest of the world. It ties in with our focus on infrastructure development in sub-Saharan Africa and we are proud to be associated with it,” says Olabode Abikoye, CEO of Aterios Capital.

Motorola Mobility, Inc. (NYSE: MMI) says that it plans to unveil the 1-GHz 2×2 VSN200 Optical Node at The Cable Show this month in Boston. The optical node is the latest addition to Motorola’s end-to-end 1-GHz Broadband Access Networks (BAN) product line.

As part of the BAN product family the VSN200 Optical Node is designed to enable cable operators to expand the bandwidth capacity of their existing infrastructures and support additional HD channels and video-on-demand capabilities, as well as higher data-rate downstream and upstream services. The VSN200 enables operators to repurpose existing housings by installing the new system using only an Electronics Package (E-Pack) and Lid swap. This easy installation process avoids the downtime of cutting out the entire node to make the upgrade, Motorola points out.

TheVSN200’s high RF output levels make it equally well suited as a fiber-deep satellite node, Motorola asserts.