Huawei Marine, CTR Partner to Deploy Undersea Cable System in Southern Chile

Huawei Marine is all set to partner with CTR (Comunicación y Telefonía Rural S.A.) to deploy the Fiber Optic Austral (FOA), the southernmost submarine cable in the world, to connect three regions in southern Chile.

This project is dedicated to improving the connectivity of residents, businesses and regional governments, to improve education, health care, agriculture, and the tourism industry and stimulate e-commerce initiatives in Chile.

Chile has the highest Internet penetration in South America. While its national backbone network covers much of the country, complex topography south of Puerto Montt leave that region short on well-established network infrastructure, and unable to meet ever-increasing connectivity demand of surrounding areas.

Subtel, as a Vice Ministry of Telecommunication and Transportation Ministry of Chile, will invest in the new FOA to connect the Las Lagos, Aysén and Magallanes regions.

CTR was awarded the contract to deploy and operate the network, while Huawei Marine will provide the end-to-end submarine cable solution. Utilizing Huawei Marine’s advanced 100G universal platform to provide a seamless optical network architecture between submarine and terrestrial networks. The system has a design capacity of 16 Tb/s and a length of 2,800 kilometers. It is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.

Route Overview of FOA

Pamela Gidi, vice minister of Telecommunications, stated that “Huawei has been working with the public and private sectors to innovate with a wide range of High-Tec solutions, and this is reflected in the FOA project, that will bring multiple benefits to Chile´s southern region.”

Patricio Morales, CEO of CTR has indicated: "The work of gathering technical information through the Marine Survey and its use for the development of detailed engineering by Huawei Marine for the Southern Submarine Trunk, is of high technological standard and detail, which makes it suitable for the complicated circumstances and challenges that the area represents for its deployment. The systems of optical transmission of capacities of up to 100Gbps per channel, will provide high capacity to the area, which can be interconnected in a simple way to the networks of existing operators, to improve their services with superior quality in terms of bandwidth and delay, in addition to more convenient prices, which will guarantee an adequate return on the capital expenditures made”.

Mike Constable, Chief Executive of Huawei Marine said, “Huawei Marine’s technology and service capabilities are again recognized by customers in South America. The FOA cable will provide state-of-the-art connectivity to enhance the digital economy of the southern Chile region. Huawei Marine is proud to be selected as the system supplier and partner with CTR to successfully deliver the social and economic benefits that this network investment will facilitate.