The Eastern Caribbean Fibre System (ECFS), which connects around a dozen countries in the Caribbean region, has selected Texas-based Xtera Communications to boost the capacity of its subsea cable system, which connects Tortola in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) to Trinidad at the south of the Caribbean arc. Under the terms of the deal Xtera will implement its Nu-Wave Optima equipment, which provides the ability to mix 10G and 100G channel rates to support existing and emerging high-capacity services. The vendor notes that Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Multiplexers (ROADMs) will be used in cable landing stations to avoid or minimise the number of regeneration points for island-to-island connectivity.
The ECFS connects the BVI, Saint Martin, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Antigua, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Barbados, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and Trinidad & Tobago, with additional branching units to Anguilla and Dominica. It was classified ‘ready for service’ in September 1995, and is co-owned by France Telecom-Orange, Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC), AT&T, BT, Verizon Business, Sprint, CANTV, Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GT&T) and Codetel.