Stuart Corner
Thursday, 23 August 2007 13:37
Business IT -
Networking
Page 2 of 3
According to Pfeffer "Total installed capacity on the two Southern Cross cables was only 80Gbps in 2001. By January 2003 we had expanded to 480Gbps and by end-2008 total installed capacity will be 860Gbps.
"With high speed broadband in its infancy we expect Southern Cross will need to get much larger during its 25 year life cycle and this can be readily achieved by replacing more land based equipment. If we do this for all fibre pairs using current technology we can take the total network to 2.4Tbps of transmission capability. But technology is continually increasing transmission speed so the potential size of the Southern Cross Cable Network will ultimately be very much higher."
The announcement comes as Pipe Networks gets close to making a final go-or-no go decision on its plans to lay a submarine cable from Sydney to Guam where it will interconnect with international links owned by VSNL International to provide an alternative route to the US and elsewhere.
For Pipe lack of capacity was never the issue: it simply claimed that lack of an alternative to systems owned by the major carriers kept prices artificially high.
Announcing its upgrade, Southern Cross said, enigmatically that "With the upgrade contract signed Southern Cross is now reassessing the commercial requirements of the changing Australasian capacity market."
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