A 10,000 km submarine network, the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy), is to be upgraded with 100 gigabit-per-second (Gbit/s) technology.

French firm Alcatel-Lucent is to carry out the upgrade using its 100G technology. Ultimately, Alcatel-Lucent plans for EASSy’s capacity to be in excess of 10Tbit/s.

EASSy stretches 10,000 km from South Africa to Sudan while the network is owned and operated by a group of 17 African and international shareholders.

"Since EASSy entered service in 2010, we have seen enormous growth in demand for capacity on the system, reflecting the service quality and reliability that we have been able to offer," said Chris Wood, chairman of the EASSy management committee in a statement.

"This upgrade will add an additional 400Gbps of capacity throughout the system, using Alcatel-Lucent's advanced coherent 100Gbit/s technology, and enables us to take a further step in offering our customers the ultra-broadband capacity needed for innovative services and applications,” said Wood.