Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

Southern Cross subsea cable system is implementing ODUflex, which is a relatively new ITU standard that allows granular Layer 1 bandwidth. No longer are we limited to 100G, 400G, and 800G for either subsea or terrestrial networks. Interestingly enough, Hauwei proposed the new standard and was its primary champion. All wavelengths consist of optical containers and ODUflex allows optical containers to be stacked at 1.25 Gps intervals. So you can lease 1.25 Gbps wavelength up to 400G in 1.25 Gbps increments. Note that port sizes are still 10G, 100G, 400G or 800G. So to access a 150G transmission rate the customer needs 400G intefaces. Ciena is one of the the vendors to implement ODUflex along with Hauwei. More details here: https://lnkd.in/dZvNbubc. It is worth noting that granular bandwidth is being implemented on the newer cables which Southern Cross owns like Next.  The commercial motivation is poor take up of 400G wavelengths. The only real customers for 400Gs are very big bandwi...

London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Zurich, Marseille, Madrid, Munich, Vienna, and many more are Layer 1 400G wave ready. Standard three year pricing is under 3000€ per month plus at least 1200 Euros a month in cross connect savings over buying 4x 100Gs. Many routes have been completely redone including conduit and ILAs with new ultra-low loss fibre and unique city approaches.