SEA-ME-WE 3

SEA-ME-WE 3
Cable typeFibre-optic
Construction beginning1997
Construction finished2000; 24 years ago (2000)
Design capacity0.02 Tbit/s (1999)
0.96 Tbit/s (2007)
1.28 Tbit/s (2009)
4.6 Tbit/s (2015)
Lit capacity2.3 Tbit/s per pair (two fibre pairs)
Owner(s)92 Party Consortium (5 Suppliers)
Websitehttp://www.smw3.com/ http://www.seamewe3.net/

SEA-ME-WE3 or South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 3 is an optical submarine telecommunications cable linking those regions and is the longest in the world. Completed in late 2000, it is led by France Telecom and China Telecom, and is administered by Singtel, a telecommunications operator owned by the Government of Singapore. The Consortium is formed by 92 other investors from the telecom industry. It was commissioned in March 2000.

It is 39,000 kilometres (24,000 mi) long[1] and uses wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) technology with Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) transmission to increase capacity and enhance the quality of the signal, especially over long distances (this cable stretches from North Germany to Australia and Japan).

According to the cable system network administrator's website, the system capacity has been upgraded several times. The cable system itself has two fibre pairs, each carrying (as of May 2007) 48 wavelengths of 10 Gbit/s.[2]

In December 2009, the 4th 10G Upgrade increased WDM channels from 48 to 64 per fibre pair.[3][4]

On 1 Jan 2015, the 5th Capacity Expansion was distributed to all the owners. Data capacity of the submarine network is increased significantly with 100G technologies.[5]

  1. ^ "Background". SEA-ME-WE 3. n.d. Archived from the original on 26 October 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  2. ^ "Background". SEA-ME-WE 3. n.d. Archived from the original on 26 October 2012. Retrieved 13 January 2009.
  3. ^ The main trunk shall contain at least 2 fibre pairs and each fibre pair shall be capable of operating at a minimum of 10 Gbit/s, providing a minimum of 64 Basic System Payload Modules in each fibre pair. "Standard IRU Agreement" (PDF). SEA-ME-WE 3. 30 November 2012. p. 23. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  4. ^ SEA-ME-WE 3 4th 10G Upgrade (Dec 2009) "Capacity Upgrade of In-service Systems using WDM Technology" (PDF). Fujitsu. 23 April 2014. p. 12.
  5. ^ "Background". SEA-ME-WE 3. n.d. Archived from the original on 26 October 2012. Retrieved 15 February 2016.