Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) and Colombia's UNE EPM Telecomunicaciones have launched the country's first 100 gigabit-per-second network to meet increasing demand for ultra-broadband access from both mobile and fixed-line customers in urban areas. It is now delivering streaming video traffic from the world soccer event, via Internet, to UNE's customers.

UNE is using the Alcatel-Lucent 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) platform as part of a network transformation aimed at addressing the growing demand for Broadband Internet in Colombia. This project is aligned with the national government's goals to close the digital divide, and its implementation supports Internet growth in the country.

The DWDM/OTN network includes the main fiber rings in Colombia's national backbone network to connect submarine landing points in Cartagena, Barranquilla and Tolu with the main capital cities including Bogota, Medellin, Bucaramanga, Cucuta, Cali, Ibague, Neiva and Popayan.

Key Facts:

  • Alcatel-Lucent is supplying UNE with its 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) product family, supporting 100G and offering exceptional capacity and speed when transporting very large amounts of data over long distances, while simplifying operations and reducing costs.
  • The network deployment has been divided in phases: the first phase was deployed in December of 2013 and the second and third phases were completed in June 2014. It is now delivering streaming traffic from the world soccer event, via Internet, to UNE's customers.
  • The network has 8.8 Tbit/s of capacity meaning that it will be able to transport the enormous projected demands of Colombian individuals and businesses for Internet access, 4G LTE connectivity, TV services, data center connectivity, as well as the addition of new services, for the foreseeable future.
  • 64 percent of Colombians currently have Internet access, with a quarter of those people accessing it through mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones.
  • The Colombia's government goal, with the Vive Digital Plan, is to achieve 8.8 million Internet connections in 2014 and it has now reached over 6.6 million. This means that Internet connectivity growth in the country has grown by 200 per cent.

Quotes:

Marc Eichmann, UNE president, said: "UNE has been a leader in technological innovation for years.  We were the first service provider to offer IPTV (digital TV) and 4G LTE in Colombia and Latin America, and now we are offering 100G speeds for ultra-broadband access in Colombia's major cities. Internet access is spreading quickly across the country and we know the demand for faster access speeds will continue to accelerate as the Internet becomes increasingly essential to how Colombians lead their lives.  With this new upgrade to our network, UNE will be able to meet that demand for a long time to come."

Carlos Peña, leader of Alcatel-Lucent activities in the Andean region, said: "UNE recognizes that it is better to be a leader than a follower when it comes to offering state of the art technology, and we are extremely proud to be supporting them in upgrading their network background in order to help them get ahead in meeting Colombia's national objectives. Upgrading the UNE network backbone to 100G capacity has been challenging due to the distances involved, but our high-performance solution has helped UNE resolve these issues. Very soon people in all of Colombia's major cities will be able to enjoy optimal data speeds for their video and data access needs."

About UNE

UNE EPM Telecomunicaciones is a branch of Grupo EPM, providing services to more than 2.2 million households in Colombia, Spain and the United States. It is the leading supplier of fixed telephony services in Colombia, with more than 1,945,081 lines (data from MinTIC Q1 2014) and second in broadband services, with 1,200,000 subscribers, and in the subscription TV market with more than one million users (data from ANTV - Q4 2013), in addition to supplying ICT solutions to corporate and small and medium business customers.

In June 2012, UNE launched commercial operations of the first large scale 4G LTE network in Latin America. For more information visit www.une.com.co

distributed by