the fastest speeds in the world.

Making the announcement last week, the company revealed that the system it would deliver to Global Crossing, used next-generation components such as high-performance optical terminal equipment, dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) equipment, line amplifiers, and wavelength termination equipment.

"Achieving the first 10-Gb /s 32-wavelength system is certainly a technology landmark,'' stated Neil Garvey, President and CEO ofTyCom.

"While other companies have announced systems based on this design architecture, TyCom is the first to install and deliver it.

"Like the recently announced C2C system in Asia, which will handle 96 wavelengths, this milestone represents another TyCom benchmark for technology and performance.'' The system, Pan American Crossing, is a 3-fibre pair cable linking California, Mexico, Panama, Venezuela and St. Croix and will ultimately provide near-terabit (960-Gb /s) capacity.

The reduced size of TyCom's next-generation terminal electronics equipment, 25 percent of previous models, creates additional efficiencies, including reduced power consumption.

Other milestones for this system are increased wavelength stability for denser wavelength packing and more advanced forward error correction technology for longer distances and higher capacity.