Massive upgrade for Aust-NZ-US cable link

Stuart Corner
Friday, 02 February 2007 09:00

Business IT - Networking

Southern Cross Cable has announced plans to quadruple the capacity of its submarine link connecting Australia and New Zealand with the USA.

Sales and marketing director, Ross Pfeffer said that a number of equipment suppliers had confirmed that it would be possible to expand total lit protected [ie with redundancy built-in] capacity from the current 240Gbps to over 1.2Tbps simply by replacing equipment that is currently installed in the 10 Southern Cross cable stations. "This new equipment will provide 10Gbps dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology on all three undersea fibre pairs and it will significantly expand the number of available transmitting wavelengths from 16 up to 40 per fibre," Pfeffer said.

"We expect to issue a tender by the end of March 07. A final decision on the upgrade is expected by the middle of the year and the upgrade work should begin in Q3, taking just six to nine months to complete.

He foreshadowed a reduction in pricing as a result of the capacity increase. "We are now developing attractive new pricing to be released in late Q2 07 and this will further support the move to very high speed broadband [by consumers]."

Pfeffer said: "We have now sold more than 50 percent of our current network capacity. Very strong demand for Southern Cross over the last few years is now intensifying due to ongoing rapid broadband subscriber growth and an upsurge in the volume of data downloaded by broadband subscribers."

This upsurge in demand has also lead to several initiatives to build other cable links, and Southern Cross's move is likely aimed at forestalling competition from a number of new trans-Pacific cable projects.