New Zealand's Hawaiki Selects Ciena to Boost Connectivity Across the Pacific

With nearly 99 percent of transoceanic data traffic traversing undersea cables, it is imperative for network operators to ensure their submarine cable investments remain capable of meeting their customers’ bandwidth needs.

To address this challenge, Hawaiki Submarine Cable LP, a new entrant in the telecommunications market, selected Ciena’s (NYSE: CIEN) GeoMesh Extreme solution based on Waveserver Ai and various packet-optical networking platforms to deliver unprecedented connectivity to Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and the United States.

Hawaiki is the only carrier-neutral bandwidth supplier in the Pacific submarine cable market. The cable began commercial operations in July 2018, delivering an initial 43.8 terabits per second additional capacity to the market. Since its inception, the 15,000 km fiber optic deep-sea cable provider has attracted strong support from government and industry leaders, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Vodafone, and REANNZ.

Hawaiki is the first subsea cable between the U.S. west coast and Oceania that has been optimized to support coherent wavelength technology. The cable will be upgraded with Ciena’s GeoMesh solution, which will offer Hawaiki the lowest cost per transported bit and evolve to a cumulative 67 terabits per second in transmission speeds. A 53 percent increase of Hawaiki’s design capacity was achieved just a few months after its commercial launch.

Leveraging Ciena’s 6500 Submarine Line Terminating Equipment (SLTE) as well as the Waveserver Ai platform, both powered by WaveLogic Ai, Hawaiki can now scale from 1GbE, 10GbE, and 100GbE services over 200G and 250G wavelengths, offering a larger granularity of capacity products to its customers. Furthermore, deploying these platforms will provide greater flexibility to meet current and future bandwidth demand, including faster delivery and dynamic provisioning.

Additionally, Ciena’s Blue Planet Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) software will improve network visibility and provide real-time software control, as well as the ability to build customized solutions.

“As the provider of the largest and fastest link between Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S., we recognize our customers’ need for innovative capacity solutions that support a shorter time-to-market and improved revenue generation. Our collaboration with Ciena will allow us to both scale our infrastructure with minimal operational complications and meet market requirements for greater connectivity and diversity across the Pacific,” explained, Remi Galasso, Chief Executive Officer, Hawaiki Submarine Cable LP.

“Hawaiki is making its mark in the Pacific region by delivering greater connectivity, diverse routes and competitive pricing that are greatly benefitting local businesses and consumers. Ciena’s optical and packet networking platforms will serve as a great complement to Hawaiki’s already extensive submarine network, addressing and adapting to the modern requirements of a bandwidth-hungry environment,” said, Rick Seeto, Vice President and General Manager of Asia Pacific and Japan, Ciena.