Terrestrial network expansion and 100G submarine upgrade provide reliable and resilient connectivity into and out of Africa

SEACOM is expanding its terrestrial network and upgrading capacity on key submarine links with Ciena® (NYSE: CIEN) to deliver new network solutions to service providers across the continent and into main European points of presence (POPs). Ciena’s GeoMesh submarine solution and converged packet optical platform equip SEACOM with a high-capacity backbone that will bring high-performing flexible services and content closer to its enterprise and service provider customers. Together, SEACOM and Ciena are supporting scalable connectivity to expand the African Internet, facilitating data services for broadband, and enabling access to cloud-based web-scale applications.

Key Facts:

  • SEACOM’s submarine and terrestrial networks stretch across 17,000 km, connecting Africa to Europe, Asia and the Middle East. This expansion gives SEACOM’s corporate and service provider customers the ability to expand and grow their operations to support the rise of cloud-based services and applications, as well as facilitate growing requirements for the processing and storage of data.
  • These extended services allow SEACOM to continue delivering affordable data connectivity to the African continent. SEACOM’s infrastructure is designed to grow and scale as Africa continues to develop, and investments in infrastructure will ultimately improve overall Internet access and enable more digital, and associated economic, opportunities.
  • With Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform underpinning its high-capacity backbone, SEACOM can cost-effectively expand, optimise and seamlessly link its submarine and terrestrial networks without disrupting existing services. By adopting Ciena’s OPn approach SEACOM’s network is also scalable and able to adapt to accommodate future architectural possibilities.
  • Ciena’s unified management capability gives SEACOM an end-to-end view of its entire infrastructure, enabling faster service turn-up and complete visibility of network performance, as well as fault management and remote troubleshooting.
  • This deployment reinforces the long-standing relationship between Ciena and SEACOM, the two companies have been working together since 2013, when SEACOM upgraded its submarine network across the Southern and Eastern African coastlines.

Executive Comments: 

  • “Africa is experiencing massive growth and demand for network services. With Ciena’s technology supporting our infrastructure evolution we can ensure cost-effective data connectivity to end-customers across the continent and internationally; ensuring that Africa is ready for the next generation of applications and high-bandwidth broadband services.”
    -          Claes Segelberg, Chief Technology Officer at SEACOM
  • “For competitive providers like SEACOM increasing network capacity efficiently and economically is critical. With this expansion and upgrade SEACOM can continue to its great work and help lead Africa into the next stage of ICT growth with scalable and competitive connectivity solutions.”
    -          Ed McCormack, VP and General Manager, Submarine Systems at Ciena

Supporting Resources:

About SEACOMSEACOM launched Africa’s first broadband submarine cable system along the eastern and southern coastlines in 2009, bringing with it a vast supply of high quality and affordable Internet bandwidth.

Since then, SEACOM has moved beyond being a cable operator to become a major pan-African service provider, offering a full suite of resilient and scalable data services that allow Africa’s growing ICT community to develop and evolve.

Ranging from dedicated IPL transmission services, flexible Ethernet services, to resilient IP Transit service capabilities and accessible Internet connectivity, SEACOM can now provide tailor-made communication solutions.

Today, SEACOM is the preferred partner for African network carriers and service providers. Through its ownership of Africa’s most extensive ICT data infrastructure - including multiple subsea cables and a resilient, continent-wide IP-MPLS network – SEACOM provides flexible, scalable and high-quality communications services that enable the growth of the continent’s economy.

SEACOM is privately owned and operated, allowing the company the agility to rapidly deploy new services, commercial structures and infrastructure in response to customer requirements.  SEACOM is also able to provide true open-access services with no red tape or hidden costs.

For more information, visit http://seacom.mu/

About Ciena
Ciena (NYSE: CIEN) is the network specialist. We collaborate with customers worldwide to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and fundamentally change the way they perform and compete. Ciena leverages its deep expertise in packet and optical networking and distributed software automation to deliver solutions in alignment with its OPn architecture for next-generation networks. We enable a high-scale, programmable infrastructure that can be controlled and adapted by network-level applications, and provide open interfaces to coordinate computing, storage and network resources in a unified, virtualized environment. For updates on Ciena news, follow us on Twitter @Ciena or on LinkedIn. Investors are encouraged to review the Investors section of our website at www.ciena.com/investors, where we routinely post press releases, SEC filings, recent news, financial results, and other announcements. From time to time we exclusively post material information to this website along with other

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