AT&T Corp and a consortium of other telecommunications companies are funding a 10,000km trans-Atlantic fiber optic cable linking Florida to Portugal, Spain and Italy, due to be completed by September 1999. The $236m cable is being financed by AT&T, MCI Corp, Telecom Italia SpA, Telefonica de Espana SA, and 30 other telecommunications carriers, and will be built by Tyco Submarine Systems International Ltd, Alcatel Submarine Network Systems, and Pirelli Submarine and Cables SpA International. Columbus III is the third cable running on the same route, and when demand reaches the original capacity the cable will be upgraded from 10Gbps to 40Gbps using wavelength division multiplexing technology. This translates as equivalent of 500,000 simultaneous voice calls, and 25 times the capacity of the Columbus II cable completed in 1994. This gives a good indication of how quickly the technology for high speed optic fiber transmission equipment is developing. AT&T claims that the cable is being built to deal with the rocketing demand for international bandwidth, fueled by the growth of the internet, especially in southern Europe. The final agreement follows a memorandum of understanding signed last April when the cost was estimated to be between $270m and $310m.
