Southern Cross completes cable upgrade to 100 Gbps
Even more taunts about All Black superiority now possible on OZ to NZ link
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The Southern Cross Cable Network has announced the completion of an upgrade to 100 Gbps kit on all routes.
With the Ciena 100 Gbps kit in place, the network now claims total lit capacity on its two cables of 2.6 Tbps. According to marketing director Ross Pfeffer, the cables' potential capacity between Australia/New Zealand and the USA is now 12 Tbps.
The company cites rising retail broadband data caps as driving its decision. Pfeffer said growth in both Australia and New Zealand is running at between 35 and 40 percent annually. He said the deployment will be important to keep the network ahead of the demand growth arising from cloud services, new content, and broadband initiatives in Australia (the NBN) and New Zealand (the UFB project).
The upgrade project has been ongoing since 2011, when the company decided to roll out the Ciena 6500 packet optical platform across its network. That's taken the network from the 10 Gbps optics in place before the upgrade to the current 100 Gbps capacity.
It comes hard on the heels the 40 Gbps upgrade completed during June, on the back of which AARNet announced its capacity on Southern Cross to 40 Gbps.
Pfeffer added that the implementation will form the basis of new services, with plans to add 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps Ethernet services to the price list in the near future. A 40 Gbps optical transport network service was introduced earlier this year. ®
