Alcatel Usurps Tyco for $700 Million South American Crossing
Dubbed South American Crossing (SAC) the 18,000 kilometer cable system will be installed in three phases, with initial service ready by the last quarter of 2000 and the full ring system targeted for completion by April 2001. Several undersea segments comprise the network, as well as a trans-Andean terrestrial link, forming a synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) ring network that encircles South America.
As part of the $700 million deal with Alcatel to supply and install the undersea network, Global Marine Systems Ltd., Global Crossing's marine division, gets a five-year commitment of $100 million in contracting from Alcatel that would include any subcontracting work awarded during the construction of SAC. Global Marine will provide marine support to Alcatel on a ship-availability basis.
The contract for SAC is the third to be awarded to Alcatel by Global Crossing. The 6000-km Mid-Atlantic Crossing (MAC) off the East Coast of North America, is currently being built for completion at the end of 1999. The UK to Belgium link of the Pan-European Crossing is also being manufactured for completion by end-1999.
Argentina's Impsat Corp., a provider of data transmission and private telecommunications network services in Latin America, has agreed to provide infrastructure for the trans-Andean terrestrial link of SAC. Global Crossing will also team with Impsat for the construction and provisioning of backhaul networks in all countries connected to SAC and in Venezuela, which will connect in May 2000 to Global Crossing's Pan American Crossing system.
Impsat will also buy a minimum of $46 million in capacity on the Global Crossing Network. In addition, Global Crossing and IMPSAT will engage in a non-exclusive co-marketing agreement that will combine the Pan American distribution network of IMPSAT with the Global Crossing Network.
The trans-Andean section will form the southernmost perimeter of SAC, connecting the SAC system between Las Toninas, Argentina on the Atlantic Coast and Valparaiso, Chile on the Pacific. As it crosses the continent, the system will pass through Buenos Aires, Rosario, Cordoba, and Mendoza in Argentina and Santiago in Chile.
Impsat will provide terrestrial connections linking coastal landing points of SAC to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Caracas in Venezuela, Bogota in Colombia, and Lima in Peru. The agreement also provides for IMPSAT to provide Global Crossing with a series of South American telehouses. The trans-Andean section, backhauls and telehouses will be ready for initial service by the final quarter of 2000, with the full system in operation by first quarter 2001.
Via the new telehouses, Global Crossing's customers will have access to other South American cities not included in the SAC system and to Impsat's recently announced fiber optic broadband transport and local distribution systems throughout the continent. The first segments of Impsat's broadband network in Argentina and Brazil are expected to be in service by mid-2000 and will cover 10 main cities and more than 40 intermediate cities in these countries. The agreement further provides for IMPSAT to maintain the trans- Andean section and terrestrial backhauls.
Global Crossing selected Lucent to supply optical networking equipment for the terrestrial portion of the project. Lucent will provide its 80-channel WaveStar OLS 400G dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) systems and BandWidth Manager. Global Crossing also intends to use Lucent's TrueWave RS (reduced slope) optical fiber in building the terrestrial portion of the network.
The landing points for the undersea network will be: Las Toninas, Argentina; Santos, Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza, Brazil; St. Croix, US Virgin Islands; Fort Armador, Panama; Buenaventura, Colombia; Lurin, Peru; and Valparaiso, Chile. At all of these locations, except Fort Armador in Panama, Alcatel is responsible for the construction of the landing stations.
Edited by Erik Kreifeldt