Australia Japan Cable Upgrades Subsea Link with Ciena’s WaveLogic Technology

Ciena® Corporation, the network specialist, today announced it was selected by Australia Japan Cable (AJC) to expand its subsea cable route spanning approximately 12,700 kilometers between Sydney, Guam and Japan.

“We selected Ciena after a stringent selection and trial process because of their demonstrable track record in deploying 40G Coherent solution for segments over 7,000 kilometers in reach. The ability to expeditiously augment AJC’s existing capacity plus support OTN services from day one also played a key role noting the continually increasing data volumes carried by AJC”, said David Crofts, CEO of AJC.

Ciena’s market-leading coherent 40 Gigabits per second (40G) optical networking solutions will equip AJC to address exponential growth in demand being fueled by high-bandwidth services and applications in the Asia-Pacific region. The upgraded network will also play an important role supporting Australia’s international connectivity benefiting businesses and consumers across Australia.

Ciena’s Anthony McLachlan, Vice President and General Manager, Asia Pacific stated: “Submarine networks carry the majority of all international traffic between continents, so they play a key role in addressing the global demand for bandwidth. Further, while Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) will certainly offer high bandwidth within Australia’s borders, the majority of traffic will come from overseas and it is for this reason that submarine networks are crucial to a country aiming to maximize the potential of the NBN. Ciena’s 40G/100G technology enables submarine operators to increase existing undersea cable capacities without having to install new undersea cables, which are costly, risky, and time-consuming to deploy.”

Key Facts:

· AJC is a submarine cable directly connecting Australia and Japan, via Guam. To enable onward connectivity, the AJC network provides access to high-capacity, high-volume, and low unit cost trans-Pacific and intra-Asia cables via Guam and Japan.

· AJC will deploy Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform with 40G technology that will allow AJC to cost-effectively and expeditiously address surging bandwidth demands on routes supported by AJC. Leveraging Ciena’s industry-leading WaveLogic™ coherent optical processors, the upgraded submarine cable network will add a total of 560 Gigabits per second (Gbps) of capacity. The deployment will also give AJC the ability to scale to 100G wavelengths as bandwidth demands evolve.

· The 6500 platform’s OTN capabilities also allow AJC to accommodate new OTN-based wholesale services into the market.

· AJC is also deploying Ciena’s OneControl Unified Management System which will provide a comprehensive solution to manage mission operations for rapid service turn-up, unsurpassed visibility through protocol layers for troubleshooting, and efficient use of assets and bandwidth.

Technology Leadership and Product Background:

· Ciena’s WaveLogic coherent receiver technology enables unobtrusive 40G/100G upgrades to existing submarine networks with only the addition of new terminal equipment, significantly extending the life of existing cable plants and further lengthening its lifespan.

· Ciena is the pioneer and market leader of coherent optical technology with more than 10,000 coherent 40G/100G line interfaces shipped to more than 100 customer deployments over land and undersea across the globe, including deployments in eight countries across the Asia Pacific region.

· Ciena is also the pioneer in intelligent switching, with more than 2,000 control plane-enabled nodes deployed worldwide with several mesh networks that circle the globe.

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Subsea World News Staff , March 14, 2012;  Image: ACJ