Southern Cross Launches ‘Elastic’ Transoceanic Bandwidth Services with Ciena

Southern Cross Cable Network, a leading supplier of international capacity to service providers in Australia and New Zealand, is leveraging Ciena’s (NYSE: CIEN) Blue Planet V-WAN to support its recently introduced Gigaflex Elastic bandwidth-on-demand capability that makes trans-Pacific connectivity more accessible for its customers. This allows Southern Cross to flexibly and dynamically provide on-demand virtual network capabilities that enable its customers to quickly provision high-speed, high-capacity network resources whenever they need them. For example, a large enterprise customer can schedule an increase in service bandwidth in anticipation of a major event or during peak demand, and then decommission the connection once the event has concluded, and only pay for actual usage.

Key Facts:

• Southern Cross Cable Network owns and operates a trans-Pacific submarine cable network connecting Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Hawaii to the mainland United States, and has recently announced the start of the Southern Cross NEXT program, adding a third, high capacity, low latency route, to Southern Cross’ existing highly resilient network eco-system. Ciena’s solutions allow Southern Cross to introduce new bandwidth-on-demand services to customers requiring short duration connectivity across the Pacific.

• Ciena’s Blue Planet V-WAN connects Southern Cross data centers on the U.S. West Coast —Seattle, Portland, San Jose, and Los Angeles — to those in Sydney (Australia), Fiji and Hawaii as well as Auckland (New Zealand), allowing Southern Cross to offer a complete end-to-end connectivity solution for customers who have changing trans-Pacific demands. Southern Cross can also quickly launch highly differentiated services complete with customer-facing portals and service delivery node control, that allow for broadened revenue streams and the ability to meet end-customers’ traffic demands.

• The Southern Cross Gigaflex elastic solution is based around the industry-leading Ciena Blue Planet V-WAN and software, as well as the 5400 and 8700 Packetwave platforms, providing a next-generation software and hardware architecture. Southern Cross is also utilizing Ciena’s network management solution that provides multi-layer network monitoring, rapid and efficient service turn up, and troubleshooting. Southern Cross also benefits from Ciena’s professional services team, which provides hands-on support to help facilitate the introduction of these capabilities into the network operational environment.

Executive Comments:

• “At Southern Cross, our goal is to lead the industry by providing innovative, reliable and fast bandwidth across the Pacific to carriers and internet service providers. By partnering with Ciena, we have achieved another significant industry milestone. Our new Gigaflex elastic bandwidth-on-demand capability is our first entrance into the SDN arena and in what we believe to be another world first for a pure submarine cable operator, and helps augment Southern Cross’ existing portfolio of lease and IRU capacity products.”
  -        Craige Sloots, Director Marketing & Strategy, Southern Cross

• “With Ciena’s Blue Planet V-WAN, Southern Cross is taking a leadership position in driving new on-demand business models. Ciena’s solutions provide greater control of their network capacity allocation, and the ability to handle demand schedules that require flexibility. For customers who have short-term, high-capacity, and low-latency demands, this flexibility is a must and a key competitive advantage for Southern Cross.”
  -        Anthony McLachlan, Vice President and General Manager, Asia Pacific, Ciena

About Southern Cross
Southern Cross Cable Network provides fast, direct, and 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, and has a current potential capacity of 20Tbs. They provide Australasian broadband users with international connections to the US West coast where global Internet hubs are located. The Southern Cross Cable Network is owned by Telecom NZ (50%), Singtel-Optus (40%) and Verizon Business (10%). The Southern Cross NEXT project will be a third high capacity express route, providing data-centre connectivity between Sydney, Auckland, and Los Angeles, and is on target for completion in 2019. Southern Cross Cable Network has offices in Bermuda, Sydney, Auckland and Wellington.  For more information visit Southern Cross at:  http://www.southerncrosscables.com.

About Ciena
Ciena (NYSE: CIEN) is a network strategy and technology company. We translate best-in-class technology into value through a high-touch, consultative business model – with a relentless drive to create exceptional experiences measured by outcomes. For updates on Ciena, follow us on Twitter @Ciena, LinkedIn, the Ciena Insights blog, or visit www.ciena.com.

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