Xtera Communications has completed the loading of its second repeatered submarine cable system that will be deployed within the next 2 months in the Atlantic Ocean.

This new repeatered project will go live after the successful upgrade of the High capacity, Undersea Guernsey Optical-fiber (HUGO) subsea cable system connecting Porthcurno (UK), Guernsey (UK) and Lannion (France), where Xtera’s wideband repeaters were inserted into the existing cable plant to increase system capacity.

The approximately 1,500 km long cable system was loaded from Nexans cable factory in Rognan, Norway with more than 10 repeaters.

“Following the upgrade of the HUGO system wet plant, we are now deploying a new subsea optical transmission infrastructure with our repeaters and submarine cable from Nexans,” said Stuart Barnes, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Xtera Submarine Business. “Our innovative repeater adds nicely to our portfolio of flexible solutions for building new subsea infrastructure, upgrading existing cable assets under water, or recovering and re-laying existing cable assets.”

The company informed that due to the distant location of the project and the unavailability of the cable ship, the cable system was loaded aboard a freighter to avoid any delay in the project implementation. The cable system will be transferred from the freighter to the cable ship when both ships meet. For shipping the cable system, the inside of the freighter was equipped with two metal structures forming two cable tanks ready to accept the cable system.

Image: Xtera