Southern Cross Cables Selects Nortel 40G

Southern Cross Cables has selected Nortel’s 40G optical technology for its Southern Cross network, which provides the major link for Internet traffic from Australia, New Zealand and Fiji to the US, as well as linking Hawaii to the US mainland. Specifically, Southern Cross is upgrading its terrestrial optical network in the USA from its current 10G technology to 40G to give its customers the means to serve bandwidth-intensive applications like high-definition video conferencing, and at a lower cost than has been possible until now.

Nortel said its 40G/100G Adaptive Optical Engine will in future be able to deliver speeds of up to 100G or 10 times the current offering . The same 40G platform can be extended on to Southern Cross’ Submarine segments.

Nortel’s solution for Southern Cross is based on Nortel’s flagship OME 6500, an optical convergence platform that supports transponding, TDM and Ethernet switching on a single device, allowing service providers a smooth migration to a reliable and scalable Ethernet infrastructure while maintaining minimal infrastructure costs. The OME 6500 features Nortel’s unique electronic dynamically compensating optics (eDCO) technology that enables fiber spans of up to 2,000 kilometers without the need for costly regeneration equipment. OME 6500 has been deployed in over 200 networks globally, including with Verizon Business across Europe and Asia.http://www.nortel.comhttp://www.southerncrosscables.com

• On March 31, 2008, Southern Cross lit up another 260 Gbps of capacity, or 130 Gbps on each of its two submarine fibre-optic cables that directly connect both Australia and New Zealand to the US Internet. When completed later this year the current upgrade will take Southern Cross total installed capacity to 860 Gbps.