Southern Cross Cable says it can now extend the life of its cable to 2025, thanks to recent upgrades, and more in the offing.Previously, the company had only signed contracts committing to service up to 2020.The Southern Cross Cable runs for 28,500km, lin
Southern Cross Cable says it can now extend the life of its cable to 2025, thanks to recent upgrades, and more in the offing.
Previously, the company had only signed contracts committing to service up to 2020.
The Southern Cross Cable runs for 28,500km, linking Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and the mainland US.
Sales and marketing manager Ross Pfeffer told Australia’s CommsDay that Southern Cross had completed an upgrade in April that took total capacity to 1.2 terabits per second.
A further upgrade in one to two years will take total capacity to 4.8Tbit/s, with individual customers able to purchase 40Gibt/s chunks of bandwidth (that is, the capacity being promised by putative competitor Pacific Fibre).
Within five years, 100Gbit/s would be possible on Southern Cross.
The capacity would be more than enough to handle extra traffic demands generated by Crown fibre projects in New Zealand and Australia, Mr Pffefer said.
Pacific Fibre is teaming in a 50-50 venture with Hong Kong and Singapore-headquartered PacNet to build a cable between Sydney, Auckland and LA, busting Southern Cross’s monopoly on fibre running out of New Zealand.
Although it has boasted about its capacity, and the advantages of all-new, state-of-the-art systems, a key part of Pacific Fibre’s pitch has also been that it will offer choice.
Almost all submarine cable companies are owned by phone companies, or phone company consortiums, Sam Morgan recently told an NZ Computer Society audience (Southern Cross Cable, incorporated in Bermuda, is 50% owned by Telecom, 40% by Verizon and 10% by SingTel).
Phone companies were not naturally inclined to offer unlimited bandwidth, as it would eat into traditional toll revenue, Mr Morgan claimed.
By contrast, Pacific Fibre would be one of the only cable companies not aligned with any carrier. Instead, its interests were aligned with those of ISPs, Mr Morgan said, holding up the allure of uncapped data plans.
