| For 2 years, France T�l�com and 15 other international carriers have been working on the Sea-Me-We 4 project, the 4th in the series of the SEA-ME-WE cable systems connecting Europe (France) and Asia (Singapore) via Middle East (refer to EuroWire N� 38). The final agreement to build the cable was signed on March, 27th 2004 and it is expected to be ready for service in the third quarter of 2005. The construction of this cable system is an obvious testimony to the growing demand for high-capacity broadband links that are essential in today�s world of high-speed international connectivity and on-line business. Many developing markets are expected to see strong growth in the short term as the economy recovers and the continuing efforts to embrace the broadband technologies and expansion infrastructure.
The system will span some 20,000km across the Eastern and Western worlds, to achieve ultra-fast Terabit per second connectivity. It will link 14 countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Italy and France) and will permit an alternative route to Sea-Me-We 3 for major destinations. The system is amongst the most economical cable system in the region built with the latest state-of-art technology. Indeed, Sea-Me-We 4 and Sea-Me-We 3 (refer to EuroWire N� 24) will create a ring architecture on the Europe-Asia route, and would allow France T�l�com to get this strategic routing secured.
Sea-Me-We 4 main characteristic is its flexibility. The new cable system will allow capacity owners a full portability all over the system, and will permit to any party to activate half or full circuits to any destination. Sea-Me-We 4 will have an equipped capacity of 160Gbit/s (3 times the current Europe-Asia submarine capacity) and a potential, when fully upgraded, of 1.2Tbit/s. Thus, Sea-Me-We 4 should guarantee France T�l�com and its customers enough capacity to reach Middle-East, India, and other strategic destination needs for the next decade.
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