wiredinUSA December 2011

INDEX

Japanese joint development

Fiber deal attracting interest

Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd and Furukawa Electric Co Ltd have developed optical interconnect technology for the high-speed, large-bandwidth internal data transmissions demanded by the next generation of high-performance servers. Transmissions via the currently used copper wire present limitations with increasing speed and bandwidth. However, with optical transmission over fiber optic lines issues arise concerning required space. Now Fujitsu Laboratories and Furukawa Electric have developed optical interconnect technology that increases the density of fiber optic lines while enabling high-bandwidth internal communications at speeds of 50Tbps, ten times faster than is possible with existing copper lines. This technology promises to enable high-bandwidth, high-performance servers capable of a wide range of services involving real-time analysis of huge amounts of data from sensors, such as forecasts of traffic congestion and of electricity demand.

Chinese telecoms equipment vendor ZTE is among several international firms planning to participate in Safaricom’s recently-announced tender for firms to install, operate and maintain a 4,000km national fiber optic network. Business Daily Africa reports that the cable, provisionally priced at USD $50.5 million, will become the second largest inland network behind the 4,300km National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI). Three different equipment suppliers were chosen to deploy NOFBI, with each vendor responsible for one of the three regional sections; Huawei deployed networks in Nairobi and the central region, ZTE covered the west, and Sagem handled the coastal and north-eastern zones. ZTE is believed to be the fourth company to declare its intention to participate, following local firms Jamii Telecoms Ltd (JTL), Kenya Data Networks (KDN) and Soliton Telemec. Safaricom’s director of corporate affairs, Nzioka Waita, has confirmed that several other global vendors have expressed interest, commenting: “We are seeing a wide range of interest from both local and international vendor community and which offers us with good ground for negotiating the pricing.”

ASIA / AFRICA NEWS

wiredInUSA - December 2011

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