While 2015 looks to be a year of huge capacity requirements, with the arrival plans of internet video streaming providers such as Netflix into New Zealand, Southern Cross Cable Network and its resellers claim to be "well positioned" to meet demand growth.
President & CEO, Anthony Briscoe, advises that Southern Cross has recently completed live system trials with multiple vendors using 100Gb/s technology, confirming and exceeding Southern Cross’ previous projections of potential capacity for the system.
Briscoe confirms that while Southern Cross has been confident that it’s technology roadmap for 2015 would support a 12 Tb/s capacity potential for the system (up from the current technology potential of 7.8 Tb/s), the trials have confirmed that 14.4Tb/s is achievable, an increase of 85% over current technology, and 20% higher than previous projections.
“To put this in context, this represents a capability of streaming over 700,000 Ultra HD (4K) videos simultaneously, or the download of more than 180 million Blu-Ray discs per month," Briscoe says.
“The technology improvements are staggering, when you consider that the original potential of Southern Cross was 240 Gb/s back in 2000.
"Our current potential represents the equivalent of over 58 Southern Cross cable systems being built using the original technology.
"Couple this with our recent introduction of 100 Gigabit submarine Ethernet Private Line services, a regional first as far as we are aware, and our existing connectivity to key data centres such as Equinix SY1 in Sydney, CoreSite SV1 in San Jose, and WBX in Seattle, we are well positioned to cater for large content provider needs, including 4K streaming."
For Southern Cross, 2014 was a busy year, with the organisation undertaking its largest capacity upgrade to date adding 1 Tb/s of lit capacity to the network, and confirming its system life extension to 2030, while also finalising capacity supply deals with a number of major customers.
Despite such a hectic twelve months, Briscoe says "2015 will not be any less active."
“Southern Cross first introduced the Ciena 6500 Packet-Optical Platform in 2011 and is currently upgrading its network with Ciena’s powerful new WaveLogic modulation capability and Flexible Grid technologies, to continue to future proof the network and provide a platform to support expanding demand," he says.
"That critical decision has continued to pay dividends, enabling the transition of the Southern Cross network from 10G optics, to 40G in 2012, to 100G in 2013, and now exceeding our expectations for flexible optical grid capability.”