Australia Japan Cable & Pacific Crossing offer GigE links from Australia to USA

Stuart Corner
Monday, 31 August 2009 13:53

IT Industry - Strategy

Australia Japan Cable (AJC) and Pacific Crossing have launched a gigabit ethernet service across their respective networks for carrier, enterprise, and ISP customers wanting connectivity between Australia and North America.

Both companies introduced gigabit ethernet offerings on their own networks earlier in the year and have now launched services across both networks offering interfaces at 1Gbps and 10Gbps providing throughput in increments from 155Mbps (STM1) up to the full capacity of the interface.

AJC's commercial director, Chris Kessikidis, described the move as "an evolutionary step in our product strategy," adding: "We have established relationships with Australian backhaul providers enabling the ability to deliver these services all the way to the customer's premise."

AJC's head of engineering, Phillip Murphy, added: "While international submarine networks, including AJC, have historically provided connectivity using protected and unprotected SDH capacity, there has been a clear trend to migrate ethernet connectivity from local to national to international. We are pleased to be working with PCL to provide this solution to the marketplace."

The AJC cable is a 12,700km optical fibre ring submarine cable network, directly connecting Australia and Japan, via Guam. It has a design capacity of up to 64 waves per fibre pair each capable of carrying 10Gbps.

Pacific Crossing owns and operates the 21,000 trans-Pacific, subsea fibre-optic network ring, PC1, connecting the US and Japan. It claims to offer the highest reliability and the lowest latency across the Pacific and is linked to extensive backhaul into major US and Japanese cities. In May this year Pacific Crossing was acquired by NTT Communications of Japan.

NTT Com said that, as a result of the acquisition "Customers of Pacific Crossing will now have access to NTT Com's global infrastructure including a domestic Japan network capable of providing seamless connectivity between the PC-1 network and major communication hubs in Tokyo and Osaka, as well as the rest of Asia. Customers in mainland Asia will now be able to connect directly to Pacific Crossing's and NTT's combined twelve points of presence in the Us, including Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago and New York."

Pacific Crossing was once part of the Global Crossing cable system that went bankrupt in 2001. Pacific Crossing, which cost $US1.35b to build was sold for $US63m in 2003. NTT Com did not disclose what it paid for the business.