Du, one of the two major telcos in the United Arab Emirates, has awarded a contract to Alcatel-Lucent to build the second phase of its high-speed 100G coherent optical transport network throughout the country.

The new optical transport network is expected to dramatically boost the speed and capacity of Du’s existing network, and support surging demand for cloud, video and other data-intensive applications.

The solutions being supplied to Du include Alca-Lu’s soft decision forward error correction technology, described as capable of extending the reach of 100G signals to much longer, more usable distances.

There were just over 1 million broadband subscribers in the UAE by the end of September 2012, with Du accounting for 136,000 of them and rival Etisalat taking the rest, according to Informa Telecoms & Media.