Southern Cross Taps Ciena to Launch ODUflex Solutions

Southern Cross Cables Limited (“Southern Cross”) has unveiled ODUflex solutions across its entire eco-system, providing greater capacity options in its Layer 1 Ethernet and OTN product sets.

“We continue to focus on developing product solutions based on resilience, express connectivity and flexible bandwidth options. We have provided Layer 1 and Layer 2 solutions for several years as part of our Giganet (OTN) and Gigapac (MPLS) product sets. Last year, we introduced 400GbE full-rate to these product sets and are pleased to further enhance our OTN based offerings with the support of multi-rate Layer 1 solutions using Ciena ODUflex technology.” said Craige Sloots, Director of Marketing, Strategy & Sales for Southern Cross.

Southern Cross was one of the first submarine cable providers to introduce Ethernet on OTN (EoOTN) solutions. The Giganet product is focused on full-rate, low latency, resilient connectivity between our eco-system of over 15 cable station and data-centre access points across Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

The augmentation of the product to leverage ODUflex represents a significant milestone in our commitment to continue to provide and enhance the flexibility of our products for our customers.

ODUflex will enable customers to take advantage of existing 10GbE and 100GbE (and equivalent OTU) interfaces, but access fractional payload speeds, while maintaining the transparency available from a Layer 1 connectivity service, to better scale their connectivity to match their demand needs. 400GbE ODUflex services are planned for 2025.

“Bandwidth demands are not letting up and forward-looking network providers like Southern Cross are looking to empower their networks to be more dynamic and flexible, yet reliable. With Ciena ODUflex, Southern Cross and its customers will be better able to future-proof the network against rapidly changing demands, improving service velocity and network efficiency,” said Philip Rolle, Regional Managing Director, Subsea, Ciena Asia Pacific.

Southern Cross Cable Network provides fast, direct, and secure international bandwidth from Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific to the heart of the Internet in the USA.

The Southern Cross Cable Network comprises three diverse submarine communications cables from Oceania to the US West coast where global Internet hubs are located. The Southern Cross NEXT cable is the latest high performance express route in the Southern Cross eco-system, providing data centre connectivity between Sydney, Auckland, and Los Angeles.