Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, the cables subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU), and Telefónica are upgrading the PENCAN-7 and PENCAN-8 undersea cable systems linking landing points on the Spanish mainland to Gran Canaria and Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

The 100 gigabits-per-second (Gbit/s) upgrade will offer a more than tenfold increase of the current system capacity, allowing to meet growing demand for broadband services and connectivity.

The PENCAN-7 and PENCAN-8 systems, which are both 1,400km in length, respectively connect Chipiona in Cadiz Province (Spain Mainland) to Las Palmas/Altavista in Gran Canaria, and Conil also in Cadiz Province to Candelaria in Tenerife, offering high resilience for traffic protection.

These two submarine cables are part of the Telefonica PENCAN Network which links the Peninsula (Spain Mainland) with Canary Island. The PENCAN Network, which comprises four geographically diversified, state-of-the art, fiber optics submarine cables – namely PENCAN-6, PENCAN-7, PENCAN-8 and PENCAN-9, enables Telefonica to provide any kind of ultra-broadband robust services between Canary Islands and the rest of the Spain.

Maria Jesus Almazor, Regional Director for Southern Spain at Telefónica  said: “PENCAN Submarine Cable Systems have a proven track record of operational excellence based on optimum network performance and further scalability via seamless upgrades. The additional capacity available with ASN’s advanced  technology will contribute significantly in meeting the ongoing demand in the markets served by these Systems.”

Philippe Dumont, President of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, said: “We are pleased to support Telefónica their expansion of connectivity between Spain mainland and the Canary Islands, enabling the expansion of capacity to boost broadband traffic. ASN’s unique submarine technology provides operators like Telefónica an easy upgrade path and scalability to multi-terabit capacity, with staged migration combining technological and economic benefits. This allows quicker service turn-up to meet the end-user’s expectations for anywhere, anytime ultra-broadband access to applications, storage and computing.”

Telefónica is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world in terms of market capitalisation and number of customers. With its best in class mobile, fixed and broadband networks, and innovative portfolio of digital solutions, Telefónica is transforming itself into a ‘Digital Telco’, a company that will be even better placed to meet the needs of its customers and capture new revenue growth. The company has a significant presence in 21 countries and a customer base of over 329 million accesses around the world. Telefónica has a strong presence in Spain, Europe and Latin America, where the company focuses an important part of its growth strategy.  Telefónica manages almost 41 million accesses in Spain and runs the the most extensive Fibre-to-the-home network in Europe with the highest number of connected customers reaching 12.5 million premises passed to June.

Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks leads the industry in terms of capacity and installed base with more than 575,000 km of optical submarine cables/systems deployed worldwide. From traditional telecom to new Oil & Gas applications, ASN provides every part of a global undersea transmission network, all tailored to the customer’s needs. An extensive service portfolio completes its comprehensive offering for the submarine business, including project management, installation and commissioning and marine operations and maintenance performed by its fleet of seven cable ships.