Xtera Wins at Faroese

ALLEN, Texas -- Xtera Communications, the leading supplier of all-Raman optical transport solutions, announced today that Faroese Telecom has selected Xtera to supply and deploy the transmission equipment for the SHEFA-2 submarine cable system, providing connectivity between the Faroe Islands, Shetland, Orkney and Scotland. The network will include the world's longest high-capacity unrepeatered segment by transmitting up to 190 Gbit/s per fiber pair over 389 km without the use of submerged repeaters or remote optically pumped amplifiers (ROPA).

Faroese Telecom, the incumbent telecom operator of the Faroe Islands, provides wireless, wireline and digital television services. Faroese Telecom is deploying the new unrepeatered cable network to support bandwidth-intensive applications for residential and commercial users. The cable will also be used along with existing submarine cables to insure highly reliable access to the rest of the world and international traffic.

The high-capacity, ultra-long unrepeatered SHEFA-2 network will be deployed using Xtera's all-Raman technology which has been used by a number of worldwide service providers over the past year to provide significant capacity upgrades on existing unrepeatered submarine systems. This deployment, on a new cable route, will showcase the strength of the all-Raman technology to simultaneously maximize both the reach and capacity of an unrepeatered network.

"Until very recently, repeaters would have been required to provide the planned capacity over this route, increasing both the initial and on-going operational costs of the system. Xtera's all-Raman technology significantly improves the economics of the project by eliminating the need for repeaters," said Kristian R. Davidsen, CEO, Faroese Telecom.

Xtera Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: XCOM)