SEPTEMBER 30, 2008 -- Pacnet says it has selected Infinera (search for Infinera) as one of its key suppliers to enable rapid network capacity upgrades across strategic parts of its networks in Asia and the U.S.
By deploying Infinera's Digital Optical Networking system to upgrade its backhaul networks and interconnections between its points of presence (PoPs) in these locations, Pacnet says it has been able to significantly shorten service provisioning times compared to traditional DWDM systems. Additionally, Infinera's equipment was selected because it satisfied Pacnet's stringent requirements with respect to reliability, GMPLS network intelligence, and scalable DWDM technologies, say Pacnet representatives.
"We have seen an exponential increase in the demand for intra-Asia and trans-Pacific traffic in the past 18 months, driven largely by bandwidth-intensive applications like high-definition video broadcasts and unified communications applications," reports Pacnet CTO Wilfred Kwan. "Our customers often require large amounts of additional capacity at short-notice; thus, we needed to build a next-generation network that is fast, responsive, and able to scale up quickly. Deploying Infinera's advanced next-generation optical system has helped us to meet this requirement," he asserts.
As part of its trans-Pacific strategy to offer additional capacity and capabilities between Asia and North America, Pacnet has also deployed Infinera's equipment to interconnect its PoPs in Los Angeles. In February 2008, Pacnet announced its plan to build EAC Pacific, which is part of the $300-million trans-Pacific Unity cable project, a 10,000-kilometer submarine cable linking Japan with the west coast of the U.S.
Pacnet is Asia's largest independent telecommunications service provider formed from the operational merger of Asia Netcom and Pacific Internet. It owns and operates EAC-C2C, Asia's longest submarine cable network at 36,800 kilometers, which links major Asian markets, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Using Bandwidth Virtualization, Infinera systems deploy a minimum of 100 Gbits/sec on every line card, and capacity can be quickly and flexibly deployed and reconfigured to deliver a wide variety of services, say Infinera representatives. The simplicity of operations has enabled Pacnet to deliver high-bandwidth services quickly and cost-effectively to customers throughout Asia and in the U.S.
According to Infinera, its DTN is the first commercially deployed optical system based on photonic integrated circuits integrating more than 60 optical devices on a pair of chips. Integration produces significant benefits in terms of cost, space consumption, power consumption, reliability, and scalability. By eliminating more than 90% of the fiber connections in an optical system, the Infinera system delivers very high reliability, contends the company. Infinera says it has built on that core advantage with a test and manufacturing process designed to ensure that Infinera systems deliver extremely high reliability out of the box and in operation in the field.
Pacnet also plans to deploy Infinera's new ILS2 system. The new system delivers enhanced optical reach and fiber capacity while extending the advantages of Infinera's digital architecture, including a GMPLS-powered network operating system for operational efficiency and protection.
"Service providers in Asia are seeing exponential growth in bandwidth, like their counterparts in the rest of the world," adds Infinera CEO Jagdeep Singh. "They share a need for flexibility, intelligence, and reliability in next-generation DWDM systems. We are very pleased to support Pacnet in addressing these needs with the industry's best digital optical network equipment."
The Infinera DTN is a digital ROADM for long-haul and metro core networks, combining high-capacity DWDM transport, integrated digital bandwidth management, and GMPLS-powered service intelligence in a single platform.