In a release today the international cable operator said the new gear will bring massive capacity to a route that connects Jordan to Egypt on the other side of the Red Sea. The rest of the FEA cable wasn’t mentioned, but one step at a time I guess.
Ciena’s coherent packet-optical gear will do the work, which is no surprise as the same gear is in place elsewhere in Reliance’s global network. Previous upgrades have put 40G in place in East Asia and the Mediterranean, and 100G on land in Europe.
Earlier this year, Reliance tried to IPO its submarine cable division in Singapore but was driven back by weak interest from investors.
That followed a couple years of rumored attempts to sell the division, all in an effort to help the parent company with debt issues. It seems likely that if the economy picks up, they’ll try again. But in the meantime, bring on the bandwidth!