OCTOBER 12, 2010 -- Southern Cross Cables will continue to provide service on its undersea cable network until at least November 2025, Ross Pfeffer, director sales and marketing, has announced. The previous commitment was set to expire in 2020.
Three factors led Southern Cross to extend the cable’s service life:
- Confidence in the health of the protected loop network, which was engineered to perform to specification until 2025. Continued improvements in transmission electronics associated with the cable’s regular capacity upgrade program support this belief.
- The fact that Southern Cross has all of its commercial supply arrangements in place until at least 2025 for cable station and NOC operation.
- Customer demand
Southern Cross says the cable system should be able to provide reliable service beyond 2025 as well. In the meantime, the capacity expansion program is expected to continue through regular network upgrades. Southern Cross also will continue to review when and where new cables will be laid.
Southern Cross anticipates the next system upgrade will begin in 18 to 36 months, depending on demand. The next upgrade could be based on new 40-Gbps technology that has already been successfully tested on the system’s longest undersea segments. Such an upgrade would expand total capacity to 9.68 Tbps (or 4.8 Tbps per cable).
Within the next 5 years Southern Cross also expects transmission upgrades will enable use of 100-Gbps technology.