Tata Communications has quadrupled the bandwidth of its London to New York subsea cable network to enable 40 gigabits per second services for carriers and enterprises.
Using optical networking technology from Ciena, the deployment of 40G on Tata's TGN-Atlantic cable makes it the fastest link on Tata's global submarine network, which mainly relies on traditional 10G optical wavelengths.
Tata says its global network currently carries 17 percent of the world's internet traffic. Telecoms market research firm TeleGeography estimates the demand for trans-Atlantic capacity will increase nearly 9-fold between 2010 and 2017, hence Tata's focus on expanding the capacity of this link.
It says the capacity of its subsea links between other countries - including between the US and other parts of Europe - will be expanded in the future.
The subsea cable links between countries - many of them in the hands of private companies - are critical for the global web infrastructure. A few years ago most of India and other other countries in the region suffered a series of web outages when a single subsea cable was damaged.
Alan Mauldin, research director at TeleGeography, said: "The compounding effect of demand growth requires carriers to make considerable investments to expand network capacity. Tata's implementation of 40G technology will play a key role in meeting customers' capacity requirements in a cost-effective manner."
Ciena's WaveLogic coherent receiver technology enables "unobtrusive" upgrades to existing submarine networks with only the addition of new terminal equipment, significantly extending the life of existing cable and lowering ongoing network operating costs.
Last week Tata's outsourcing arm TCS won a £1.37 billion contract from Insurance firm Friends Life.