Ciena touts work with Indigo, MAREA submarine cables
Ciena (NYSE: CIEN) has revealed a pair of projects in the submarine cable field over the past two weeks. The company says it has won a contract with SUB.CO and its Australian entity APX Partners to upgrade the Indigo submarine cable system as well as partnered with Facebook on a technology demonstration over the MAREA transatlantic submarine network.
The Indigo submarine cable connects Perth and Sydney, Australia, with Singapore. The two-fiber-pair undersea network runs approximately 9,000 km (see "Alcatel Submarine Networks tapped for INDIGO undersea cable system"). Ciena says the submarine network benefits from “new spectrum-sharing technology” that enables consortium members to independently upgrade their networks and increase capacity on-demand. Ciena says it will supply its GeoMesh Extreme capabilities via the company’s 6500 platform with WaveLogic 5 Extreme coherent optical engine to enable single-wavelength 500-Gbps transmission capabilities. The network also will leverage Ciena’s Hosted Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) software via Ciena Services. Ciena’s services group also will supply site engineering, installation, testing and end-to-end project management capabilities.
“Looking to where the industry is heading SUB.CO is focused on building and operating hyperscale and software-defined submarine cable capacity by fusing dedicated spectrum/fiber infrastructure ownership economics with optical platforms that will allow us to maximize spectral efficiency, yet be flexible in configuration for all our different customer demands,” stated Bevan Slattery, CEO of SUB.CO and APX Partners. “Deploying both Ciena’s latest coherent optical solution over a shared spectrum cable and its hosted network management software in the Southeast Asia region is a key piece of our long-term strategy.”
Elsewhere, Ciena revealed in a blog posted October 29, 2020, that it has conducted trials of its WaveLogic 5 technology on MAREA, which connects Virginia Beach, VA, with Bilbao, Spain (see “Microsoft, Facebook partner for MAREA undersea cable system”). Areas of investigation include potential improvements in spectral efficiency as well as the ability of automation to streamline the submarine network’s operation. “We were satisfied with the results, as we saw tangible benefits in the time it took to enable the spectrum of channels, as well as improvements in spectral efficiency on this Open Cable design,” according to Steve Grubb, a member of the Global Optical Architecture team at Facebook who was interviewed for the blog.
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Stephen Hardy | Editorial Director and Associate Publisher, Lightwave
Stephen Hardy is editorial director and associate publisher of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report, part of the Lighting & Technology Group at Endeavor Business Media. Stephen is responsible for establishing and executing editorial strategy across the both brands’ websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products. He has covered the fiber-optics space for more than 20 years, and communications and technology for more than 35 years. During his tenure, Lightwave has received awards from Folio: and the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) for editorial excellence. Prior to joining Lightwave in 1997, Stephen worked for Telecommunications magazine and the Journal of Electronic Defense.
Stephen has moderated panels at numerous events, including the Optica Executive Forum, ECOC, and SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. He also is program director for the Lightwave Innovation Reviews and the Diamond Technology Reviews.
He has written numerous articles in all aspects of optical communications and fiber-optic networks, including fiber to the home (FTTH), PON, optical components, DWDM, fiber cables, packet optical transport, optical transceivers, lasers, fiber optic testing, and more.
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