The optical fiber cable contains both Corning® SMF-28e+® LL and LEAF® optical fibers. Phase 1 of FibreCo’s construction began with a 2,000-km link between Johannesburg and Cape Town connecting Bloemfontein, East London, and Port Elizabeth. The subsequent phases of the project will see additional routes being built to enhance network redundancy and resilience. The project’s total distance will cover 12,000 km.
“We are excited to utilize Corning optical fiber for our project,” said Arif Hussain, FibreCo CEO. “Many submarine optical cables now connect South Africa to the rest of the world and a significant increase in terrestrial fiber capacity supply is required. Our network will provide the necessary high-speed capacity in South Africa as well as the ability for our customers to easily upgrade their networks to higher data rates without the need to re-install fiber.”
This is the first deployment of SMF-28e+ LL fiber in South Africa. SMF-28e+ LL fiber offers a unique combination of low attenuation values and low polarization mode dispersion (PMD) with ITU G.652.D-compliant performance for longer spans and reach. Also, SMF-28e+ LL fiber enables more repair margin which is important when fiber is damaged or cut.
“Corning’s SMF-28e+ LL and LEAF optical fibers have the lowest attenuation, or signal loss, specification in the industry in their respective categories,” said Barry Linchuck, division vice president and director, Worldwide Marketing, Corning Optical Fiber. “By using these products, FibreCo will have the ability to upgrade to even higher data rates as their customers demand new services.”
LEAF fiber is the most widely-deployed, non-zero dispersion shifted fiber. It also has lowest attenuation and largest effective area of any ITU-T G.655-compatible optical fiber, enabling networks to evolve from the current 10 Gb/s to the 40 Gb/s and 100 Gb/s systems of the future.
Construction of the FibreCo network began in April and the first link is expected to be completed in 2013.
