| Cable type | Fibre-optic |
|---|---|
| Fate | Active |
| Construction beginning | 1998 |
| Construction finished | 2000 |
| First traffic | 2000 |
| Design capacity | 2400 gbit/s (May 2010, based on 10G Technology) |
| Lit capacity | 620 gbit/s/cable (May 2010) |
| Built by | Alcaltel-Lucent/Fujitsu |
| Area served | Southern Pacific |
| Owner(s) | Southern Cross Cables Limited (Telecom NZ (50.1%), Singtel/Optus (39.99%), Verizon Business (10%)) |
| Website | Southern Cross Cables Network |
The Southern Cross Cable, operated by Bermuda company Southern Cross Cables Limited, is a trans-Pacific network of telecommunications cables commissioned in 2000.
The network has 28,900 km of submarine and 1,600 km of terrestrial fiber optic cables, operated in a triple-ring configuration. Initially, each cable had a bandwidth capacity of 120 gigabit/s,[1] but was doubled in an upgrade in April 2008,[2] with a further upgrade to 860 gigabit/s at the end of 2008.[3] Southern Cross recently upgraded [4] the existing system to 1.2 Tbit/s in May 2010, and has announced trials of 40G technology and a planned upgrade to occur by 2nd Quarter 2012 [5].
Contents |
The network comprises 12 segments (length of segment in brackets):
The network topology is configured to have redundant paths and be self-healing in case of physical damage.
In the cross section diagram shown:
There have been several incidents damaging sections of the Southern Cross Cable; in part due to it traversing the Pacific Ocean's Ring of Fire and its long length.
In late 2007, Southern Cross Cable's operations vice president, Dean Veverka, confirmed that hurricane strength storms and flooding had wiped out the carrier's Oregon cable route and halved its bandwidth between Australia/New Zealand/Fiji and USA. A Southern Cross customer (iiNet) said that emergency works have been organised to perform a more permanent fix for the damage to the cable. These works were performed on 3 February 2008 at 12 midnight AEST.[6]
In March 2008, the then head of Telecom Wholesale,Matt Crockett, mentioned to the National Business Review that there had been a recent undersea earthquake that destroyed a shunt on the Southern Cross Cable. However due to the Cable's redundancy and spare capacity, users experienced no change in access or speed.[7]
Construction of the cable began in July 1999, and the system was in use by customers by November 2000. Additional works and upgrades have since taken place to increase the network's capacity to 480 Gbit/s. In August 2007, SC Cables contracted with Alcatel-Lucent to upgrade the cable to 660 Gbit/s by the end of the first quarter 2008 and to 860 Gbit/s by the end of 2008, with future upgrade also by Alcatel-Lucent to 1.2 Tbit/s in May 2010.[8]
The company is owned by Telecom New Zealand (50%), SingTel (39.99%) and Verizon Business (10.01%).