Undersea optical network for Mediterranean cities

Undersea optical networks to link large cities around the Mediterranean sea : this is a new solution which is undertaken at the moment. France.internet.com in an article "La Méditerranée se dote d'un réseau optique nouvelle génération" has a look on this project launched by Blue country Networks with undersea optical equipments (Festoon type) delivered by Nortel Networks. At the beginning, the South of France (Marseilles, Toulon, Monaco) will be linked to Corsica (Calvi, Ajaccio, Bonifacio, Solenzara, Bastia) and to the west coast and the hinterland of Italy, up to Roma.

Main advantage : while allowing very short links –around one hundred kilometres- these networks do not require any active immerged equipment, such as repeaters which are nevertheless greatly used in optical networks. Hence some cheap possibilities of evolution. Other advantages : they prevent from constraints of land optical networks : the cost of the right of setting wire tunnel and geographical difficulties. Start of the opening of the network : the first three months 2002 with the ambition to connect all the largest Mediterranean cities in 2005.