Antarctica NZ to Optimise Satellite Communications over the WAN with Expand Networks
Crown Entity Boosts Bandwidth Available to Scientists in Antarctica and Achieves Return on Investment in Just Four
Months
SYDNEY, Australia (BUSINESS WIRE) November 11,2008
Expand Networks, www.expand.com a leading provider of application acceleration solutions over the Wide Area Network
(WAN), today announced that Antarctica NZ, the Crown Entity responsible for developing, managing and executing New
Zealand Government interests in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, has recently deployed Expand Networks WAN
optimisation technology to accelerate satellite communications and deliver impressive savings in satellite bandwidth
costs.
Antarctica NZ manages Scott Base, New Zealand s Antarctic research station, hosting up to 83 visitors at any one time.
Located nearly 4,000 km from Antarctica NZ s headquarters in Christchurch, Scott Base is highly dependent on its Telecom
NZ satellite connection to connect with colleagues and family. Antarctica NZ implemented Expand s Accelerators to
maximise its 64/256K frame relay connection, combating WAN latency issues with its Citrix-based applications and remote
web browsing.
Mike Mahon, IT administrator for Antarctica NZ comments; The clever combination of compression, acceleration and caching
that goes on within the Expand Accelerators has considerably reduced our latency issues, both within Citrix and with web
browsing. Despite a 600ms latency on our satellite link the data speeds we are experiencing are markedly improved, and
are now really rather impressive for a 7,600 km round trip just to reach the internet connection! Saving $2,000 per
month on 8Kb in effective additional bandwidth also gave us an ROI in just four months.
Steve O Brien, Vice President of Expand Networks APAC explains; A remote site in one of the world s most desolate
locations, Scott Base has incredibly limited options to increase the bandwidth available to scientists and Antarctica NZ
base staff. Buying more capacity from the satellite is a costly option, so it makes sense for Antarctica NZ to optimise
the bandwidth they already have within the WAN. When every application or web browsing session is important,
prioritising data is not enough. Our Accelerators ensure every the application can run unimpeded on the WAN, decreasing
congestion, managing QoS and rate control.
Expand Networks Accelerators use low latency, lossless techniques that work on all applications to consistently deliver
average bandwidth increases between 100 per cent and 400 percent. Expand's Quality of Service (QoS) enforcement also
ensures that applications run unimpeded on the WAN. This is not just prioritisation, but also includes sophisticated
algorithms to combat congestion, mark packets for downstream QoS handling and rate control shaping to make sure data
flows get the bandwidth they need.
ENDS