Southern Cross upgrades on-stream capacity

May 10, 2001--Southern Cross Cable Network is set to add fuel to Australasia's broadband revolution on May 15 when its first in-service capacity upgrade increases on-stream protected capacity to 60 gigabits per second (Gbit/s).

May 11, 2001

Southern Cross Cable Network is set to add fuel to Australasia's broadband revolution on May 15 when its first in-service capacity upgrade increases on-stream protected capacity to 60 gigabits per second (Gbit/s). The 30,500km trans-Pacific cable system, which entered into service in November last year is currently operating at 20 Gbit/s.

With 60Gbit/s of protected capacity, Southern Cross now dwarfs Australasia's existing cable links via PacRim (1 Gbit/s protected) and SE-ME-WE-3 (20 Gbit/s unprotected), and the company is set to make a further upgrade later this year.

"Our next upgrade in September this year will take Southern Cross to 80 Gbit/s of protected capacity. We will then upgrade the network to 240 Gbit/s in 2002, with the potential to increase total protected network capacity to 480 Gbit/s at a later date," says Ross Pfeffer, Director Asia Pacific Market for Southern Cross Cable Network.

About Southern Cross Cables:

Based in Bermuda, Southern Cross was created to remove bandwidth bottleneck between Australasia and the United States. For more information, visit www.southerncrosscables.com.