The Asia-Africa-Europe-1 Consortium (AAE-1), one of the largest consortium cable systems in the world, has recently completed a significant upgrade on its intercontinental cable system.
Working with Infinera, a global supplier of networking solutions, the consortium has been able to boost capacity on its subsea network connecting East Asia to Europe via Egypt.
In fact, says Infinera, based on the company’s fourth-generation Infinite Capacity Engine (ICE4) technology and Instant Bandwidth capability, the Infinera solution has enabled AAE-1 to double the capacity on its intercontinental network while reducing total cost of ownership and increasing service agility and network reliability.
AAE-1’s cable system spans 25,000 kilometres of subsea and terrestrial network. Unlike any other cable system in the world, AAE-1 terminates at two points of presence in Singapore and is the only next-generation cable that continues further into Asia through diverse terrestrial routes across Thailand, providing connectivity to Vietnam, Cambodia and Hong Kong. This unique routing enables AAE-1 to deliver one of the lowest-latency routes between Hong Kong, India, the Middle East and Europe.
AAE-1 has proved to be vital infrastructure in the Eurasia corridor, and even more so recently, providing connectivity, diversity, and resilience between European, Asian, and Middle Eastern markets.
As Loucas Balis, chairman of the AAE-1 Management Committee, pointed out, not only is AAE-1 an important subsea cable asset for carriers globally, but bandwidth needs are growing, “particularly during this very difficult and deeply sad global crisis”.