Alcatel-Lucent has started construction on the 20,000 km SEA-ME-WE 5 submarine cable which will connect France with Singapore.

In March Alcatel-Lucent signed a multi-million dollar contract with the South East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe 5 (SEA-ME-WE 5) consortium to deploy a 100Gb/s undersea cable system.

It will connect Singapore to France via Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Oman, United Arab Erimates, Djibuti, Yemen, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Italy. Co-contractor NEC will deploy the Singapore to Sri Lanka segment.

The 100Gb SEA-ME-WE 5 cable will deliver ultra-broadband capacity and faster access to consumers and businesses. Its ultimate design capacity of 24 Tbps will be used to serve the countries along its route.

The submarine cable system is being deployed because of the increase in demand for broadband for new application including cloud computing and on-demand video.

SEA-ME-WE 5 management committee chairperson Linette Lee said the rollout of the SEA-ME-WE 5 system, will deliver a dynamic and agile way to serve end-users and offer them the quality of service they need.

“Alcatel-Lucent and NEC’s 100G undersea technology will help us in setting a new milestone in the further development of this route,” Lee said.

SEA-ME-WE-5 is backed by 15 telcos including Orange, Telecom Italia, SingTel, China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile.