Alcatel and Zain complete Saudi project
Alcatel-Lucent and Zain have announced the completion of an agile optical network to provide ultra-broadband access throughout Saudi Arabia.
The fibre-optic backbone network is based on converged wavelength division multiplexing/optical transport (WDM/OTN) technology, enabling Zain to provide 100 gigabit-per-second capability throughout the country main metropolitan areas.
The two companies says they are also conducting a trial of 400 gigabit-per-second data transmission over an existing optical link carrying live network traffic in the city of Jeddah.
Hassan Kabbani, CEO of Zain, said: 'Zain Saudi Arabia is the first operator in the Middle East to deploy Alcatel-Lucent’s agile optical network technology over an existing fibre network. The growing appetite for bandwidth-hungry mobile devices and applications is driving tremendous demand throughout our network and taking this approach provides high-capacity with the flexibility and efficiency to serve our customers today and in the future.
'The 400G trial underscores our leadership within the Middle East and reinforces our commitment to maintaining leading-edge high-speed Internet capability.'
