Hondutel to build US$17.9mn fiber cable

Honduran state telco Hondutel plans to sink US$17.9mn into a fiber optic cable project, Hondutel spokesperson Carla López confirmed to BNamericas. "This is a Hondutel initiative meant to address the growth in telephony traffic," López said. The cable will connect 17 communities through a 481km network with 32 transmission stations. The cable will also connect with the Arcos and Maya international submarine cables in the northern part of the country and also through a land link to El Salvador in the El Amatillo border zone. The cable will have capacity for 30,240 simultaneous calls and will be operational early December 2004. French equipment firm Alcatel (NYSE: ALA) will be installing it. The network will have a transmission capacity of 2.5Gbps, but will launch with only eight of its 48 fibers activated. The remaining 40 fibers should come into play over the next 25 years, the useful life of the network.