Lumen’s on-net subsea fiber route connects US with France

Lumen Technologies has launched an on-net subsea fiber route between the US and France to expand its network capacity across the Atlantic Ocean.

The route builds on the Google-owned Dunant subsea cable that connects Richmond, Virginia with Paris, France.

"No other subsea cable route comes close to the capacity levels traversing the trans-Atlantic," said Alan Mauldin, research director at TeleGeography.

Mauldin added, "Looking forward, there's no question that tremendous new capacity will be required on this route. Lumen's decision to increase their capacity across the Atlantic makes a world of sense."

The 6,600-km-long (4,101-mile-long) Dunant cable connects Virginia Beach, Virginia with Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez on the French Atlantic coast. Thanks to its 12 fiber pair space-division multiplexing (SDM) design, this cable can transmit 250TB of data per second.

Lumen claims its new transatlantic fiber route will provide the greater Washington, DC data center corridor with a direct and efficient link to Europe, including Paris and Frankfurt. Additionally, Lumen’s subsea route will offer operational diversity, latency, and custom routing options.

“We're in an era of 'more'. The need for more online content, more applications and more cloud services between continents won't diminish anytime soon," explained Laurinda Pang, president of global customer success at Lumen.

Pang continued, “That's why this subsea infrastructure is so important. The capacity Lumen will be offering on the Dunant subsea cable can be scaled to meet increased customer broadband demands for years to come. With our comprehensive trans-Atlantic subsea portfolio, customers will enjoy diverse routes, low latency and a connection to one of the most interconnected and deeply peered networks in the world."

Lumen plans to offer its data and network services over the Dunant subsea system by September 2021.