Paul Farrugia joined Xtera in 2008 and is now the VP Engineering for submerged equipment having previously been responsible for hardware development of SLTE at Azea.  Prior to joining Azea in 2002 he was Director of Electro-Optics Development at Nortel’s Qtera Division where he was initially responsible for the high-speed design of the LH4000 transponder circuit packs and subsequently became the Director of Transponder Development. Paul joined Alcatel (formally STC and Northern Telecom) as a graduate engineer in 1988 and was given responsibility for the tributary units of the SLTE first used in the TAT-9 system.  He later became group leader for the high-speed transmission units used in Alcatel’s first WDM SLTE. Paul then joined Corning Communications (formally BICC) where he worked on research activities involving radio of fibre transmission, data transmission over power lines, Ethernet data communications and WDM transmission techniques before leaving to join Qtera in 1999. Paul holds an Honors Degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Liverpool.