Southern Cross Cables upgrades submarine network with Ciena GeoMesh Extreme

Ciena (NYSE: CIEN) says it has supplied its GeoMesh Extreme technology to Southern Cross Cables to enhance the submarine network operator’s undersea network. GeoMesh Extreme features Ciena’s 6500 T-Series equipped with the company’s WaveLogic Ai tunable coherent optical engine. Among other milestones, this is the first submarine network deployment of the GeoMesh Extreme technology over compensated cable, says Ciena.

The technology upgrade provides several benefits, according to Ciena. These include increased capacity, with use of the WaveLogic Ai adding 6.4 Tbps of wavelength expansion across both subsea and terrestrial infrastructure. Southern Cross has used this capability to deploy 200-Gbps wavelengths between Sydney, Australia, and Auckland, New Zealand, according to Ciena. Meanwhile, use of the 6500 T-Series adds as much as 24 Tbps of Optical Transport Network (OTN) switching capacity to improve traffic grooming.

The T-series also adds additional network programmability via its multi-layer control plane software. Southern Cross also is using Ciena’s Blue Planet Manage, Control, and Plan (MCP) software for enhanced network visibility via real-time software control. Ciena says Southern Cross is also taking advantage of the Blue Planet Network Health Predictor, Performance Portal and Blue Planet V-WAN services.

“Our customers’ needs are changing almost daily as they move towards the cloud and larger web-scale data flows, particularly between continents,” said Southern Cross Cable Network Director of Marketing and Sales Craige Sloots. “Ciena’s technology not only boosts the capacity of our Southern Cross undersea cable, but also adds a level of intelligence and service capability that is unmatched in submarine cable networks anywhere in the world. Southern Cross’s success is driven by our focus on flexibility and service, and our partnership with Ciena allows us to adapt the network as required to proactively manage and grow with changing user demands.”

Southern Cross is a longtime Ciena customer, having deployed the 6500 when it was a part of Nortel’s product portfolio before Ciena bought the Canadian systems house (see, for example, “Southern Cross selects Nortel 40G technology” and “Southern Cross submarine fiber network jumps to 100G”). The Southern Cross Cable Network comprises a pair of submarine cables that connect Australasia to the U.S. West Coast. A third submarine cable network, Southern Cross NEXT, is in the planning stages and is expected to be completed in 2020 (see "Southern Cross submarine cable system survey completed").

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