Southern Cross completes 100G expansion

Southern Cross Sales and Marketing Director Ross Pfeffer says, “The implementation of 100G technology is a major milestone in the ongoing expansion and enhancement of our 30,000km submarine network in continued support of the development of high-speed broadband in Australia and New Zealand.

“The 100G transmission equipment increases total lit capacity across our two cables to 2.6Tbps. If deployed on all Southern Cross fibres, along with gridless optical networking, our potential capacity capability increases to 12Tbps, between Australia/New Zealand and the USA.

“Retail broadband data caps have expanded dramatically on the back of current international capacity prices in both Australia and New Zealand with demand for capacity continuing to grow at around 35 to 40 per cent annually,” Pfeffer stated. “Our deployment of this latest technology places Southern Cross in an even stronger position to stay well ahead of the demand growth resulting from Australia’s NBN (National Broadband Network) and New Zealand’s UFB (Ultra-fast Broadband) initiatives, and the growth associated with cloud services and new content. The long-standing Southern Cross policy of using the latest technology improvements to expand lit capacity and to lower marginal cost will ensure that Southern Cross remains in a position to cost-effectively support demand growth for many years.

“Southern Cross first introduced the Ciena 6500 Packet-Optical Platform in 2011, to future proof the network, support expanding demand and enable product enhancement. That decision has already paid dividends, enabling the transition of the network from 10G optics, to 40G in 2012, and now to 100G, while allowing the network capacity to be augmented without adding significant complexity.

“The Ciena platforms used by Southern Cross provide enhanced switching capability in support of our mesh-enabled submarine network architecture,” said Pfeffer. “This reduces the risk of natural and man-made network disruptions, even under multi-failure conditions, and provides the platform on which the new generation of Southern Cross products is being developed, such as the recent introduction of 40Gbps OTN services, and the current development of 40GbE and 100GbE services.

“With direct connectivity to Southern Cross capacity now available from key Internet data centres such as Equinix in Sydney, CoreSite in San Jose, California and the Westin Building in Seattle, Washington (as well as our nine traditional cable stations), it is easier than ever for our customers to access high-capacity connectivity.”

Ciena’s Vice President and General Manager, Asia Pacific, Anthony McLachlan, states: “Ciena’s 100G-based GeoMesh solutions enable leading service providers like Southern Cross to address global bandwidth needs, ensure network availability and quickly respond to changing traffic and service demands. Our WaveLogic Coherent Optical Processors are well suited to the demanding distances required for Trans-Pacific links and help to minimise the need to deploy expensive new submarine cables. In addition, our portfolio uniquely addresses these complicated undersea environments that require rapid disaster recovery, remote provisioning and intensive network monitoring capabilities, as well as extreme distances and the need to leverage existing cables.”