Bold Steps to Support
Hi-Speed Broadband
Southern Cross Cable Network today announced further initiatives to support hi-speed broadband in New Zealand and
Australia.
Director of Sales and Marketing Ross Pfeffer said “With the availability of more capacity from our latest network
upgrade we have reduced prices by at least 44% and introduced a revolutionary new product to support hi-speed broadband.
Pfeffer said “Previously our most popular product gave ISP’s the option to increase capacity throughput by reducing
their provision for restoration. The new product means ISP’s can enjoy the best of both worlds; maximum throughput with
maximum protection and both are achieved at a much lower cost.
“Southern Cross is the region’s most important provider of international connectivity so it’s crucial that the full
security of our protected ring network is available to internet users.
“We have made Drop Restoration available with new capacity purchases and we are taking the further initiative of
retrofitting it to over 80% of existing capacity from Australasia”. “The retrofit to existing capacity is provided to
ISP’s on a free trial basis for a period of one year. ISP’s can easily extend their existing capacity retrofit until
2020 for no charge when they make their normal new capacity purchases”.
“Our Drop Restoration product initiative requires Southern Cross to double its capacity allocations. So the capacity
boost from the current upgrade, which takes the protected network to 430 Gbit/s, will now be used very quickly. “We have
already invited suppliers to tender for the next upgrade which will be installed within 1 to 2 years”.
Ongoing technology improvements are making large low cost upgrades increasingly attractive. The recently available 40
Gbit/s channel speed technology takes the potential size of Southern Cross from 1.2 to 4.8 Terabit/s of fully protected
capacity.
“With future capacity demand growing very quickly as high speeds and video enrich the internet it will be business as
usual for Southern Cross as it gets on with the job of implementing seamless capacity and product upgrades. Our undersea
network infrastructure is engineered to reliably function until at least 2025 and that’s plenty of time for capacity
potential to increase dramatically beyond 4.8 Terabit/s. The next step based on a channel speed that is 2.5 times higher
is already being developed for submarine cable upgrades”.
Pfeffer said “Southern Cross is committed to using future upgrade capacity to continue price reductions and to provide
new product improvements that support the expanding requirements of hi-speed broadband in both Australia and New
Zealand”.
About Southern Cross
Southern Cross Cable Network provides the fastest, most direct, and most secure international bandwidth from Australia,
New Zealand and Hawaii to the heart of the Internet in the USA.
The Southern Cross Cable Network comprises two submarine communications cables which were first commissioned in November
2000 and January 2001 at a cost of USD1.3 billion. They provide Australasian broadband users with international
connections to the US West coast where global Internet hubs are located.
The Southern Cross Network has been engineered until 2025. In 2001 total installed capacity was 80 Gbps, in January 2003
the total protected network was expanded to 240 Gbps and by end-2008 total installed protected capacity will be 430
Gbps.
With new technology continually improving potential transmission speeds, the ultimate size of the Southern Cross Cable
Network is likely to considerably exceed the current limit of 4.8 Tbps of fully protected capacity.
While the fully diverse two cable network has cost around US$1.3 billion to construct it is fortunate that capacity
expansions are much less expensive and only involve the seamless replacement of transmission equipment located in each
of our 10 cable stations. Expansions can be implemented quickly, without service disruption and they greatly increase
the amount of capacity our cable infrastructure can provide when it is needed”.
Southern Cross customers typically use capacity on many Asia-Pacific cable systems. The Southern Cross Customer
Satisfaction Survey conducted each year by Neilson has revealed that Southern Cross is the most preferred Submarine
Cable System in the Asia Pacific Region in each of the last 7 years.
The Southern Cross Cable Network is an independent company that is owned by Telecom NZ (50%), Singtel-Optus (40%) and
Verizon Business (10%).
The shareholders of Southern Cross made the original US$1.3 billion capital investment back in the late 1990’s to
support the needs of the Australasian Internet and continued to support the business through times of significant
uncertainty. Its network has now become the international backbone for Australasian broadband.
Southern Cross Cable Network has offices in Bermuda, Sydney, Auckland and Wellington. For more information visit
Southern Cross at: http://www.southerncrosscables.com
ENDS