Southern Cross Cable System Overview

The Southern Cross Cable System offers protected trans-pacific routes among Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii and the US mainland. The Southern Cross Cable contains 3 fiber pairs between Sydney and Hawaii, and 4 fiber pairs between Hawaii and the US West Coast, with almost 30,500 km in cable length. The design capacity of the Southern Cross Cable System was initially 1.28 Tbps, capable of upgrading with 40G technology. The Southern Cross Cable System was ready for service on November 15, 2000, and its service term is beyond 2025, being one of the most important high capacity cable over the southern trans-pacific route.

On July 30, 2013, Southern Cross announced the completion of upgrade with Ciena's 100G technology.

Cable System:

• Southern Cross Cable Network

Cable Length:

• 30,500 Km, including 28,900km of submarine cable and 1,600km of terrestrial cable

Fiber Pairs:

• 3 fiber pairs between Sydney and Hawaii
• 4 fiber pairs between Hawaii and the US West Coast

Design Capacity:

• originally 120 Gbps fully protected capacity, using 16x2.5G bps DWDM technology
• 1.28 Tbps using 16x10 Gbps DWDM technology
• 12 Tbps upgrade with 100Gbps Ciena technology

Lit Capacity:

• 20 Gbps protected capacity between Australasia/Hawaii and the US upon the RFS date
• 240 Gbps of protected capacity by January 2003
• 720 Gbps by Q4 2008
• 860 Gbps by May 2009
• 1.4 Tbps by Jan 2012
• 1.6 Tbps by Mar 2012 (after upgrade with 40Gbps Ciena technology)
• 2.0 Tbps by Dec 2012
• 2.7 Tbps by Jul. 2013 (after upgrade with 100Gbps Ciena technology)
• 3.6 Tbps by Jan. 2014
• 5.4 Tbps by Jun. 2016
• 7.4 Tbps 

Ready for Service Date:

• November 15, 2000

Investment Type::

• Private

Initial Investment:

• US$1.5 billion

Owner(s):

• SCCL (Southern Cross Cables Limited) and Pacific Carriage Limited, formally came into existence on Saturday 3 October 1998 and was created with three owners Telecom New Zealand (50%), SingTel Optus (40%) andVerizon Business (10%).

Landing Stations:

• Brookvale, NSW, Australia, Optus cable landing station
• Alexandria, NSW, Australia, Optus cable landing station
• Suva, Fiji, Fintel cable landing station
• Whenuapai, New Zealand, TNZ cable landing station
• Takapuna, New Zealand, TNZ cable landing station
• Kahe Point, Hawaii, USA, Verison cable landing station
• Spencer Beach, Hawaii, USA, Verizon cable landing station
• Nedonna Beach, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA, Verizon cable landing station
• San Jose, California, USA (access point for terrestrial connection only)
• Morro Bay, California, USA, Verizon cable landing station

Vendors:

• Alcatel-Lucent
• Fujitsu
• Ciena for the upgrade with 40G and 100G solutions