1:20 PM -- Just a few months after it announced its arrival on the subsea networks sector, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. has announced its first underwater engagement -- and it's in Europe, where there's no shortage of submarine action. (See New Euro Subsea Action and Huawei Goes Underwater.)

The Chinese vendor has been involved in the expansion of Telecom Italia (TIM) 's MedNautilus Submarine Optical Network, which runs from the island of Sicily and heads east to Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, and Israel. That value of the deal has not been revealed.

It previously looked like Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) had the MedNautilus project sewn up, but Telecom Italia Sparkle , the Italian incumbent's wholesale business, obviously took a shine to Huawei's submarine DWDM gear. (See Alcatel Wins Med Deal.)

That's not Huawei's only recent European coup -- the still rampant vendor has also just announced a terrestrial optical network rollout with Hungarian incumbent operator Magyar Telekom plc , part of the Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT) empire. (See Magyar Deploys Huawei, Huawei Sets Bumper Sales Target, and Heavy Reading Homes In on Huawei.)

— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading