BW Digital, the owner of the Hawaiki Submarine Cable, confirms the availability of commercial 400 GbE services on the Hawaiki trans-Pacific cable, powered by Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme subsea network solution. This development follows an earlier milestone in November 2020 when the Hawaiki cable achieved 500 Gbps channel wavelengths.
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400 GbE services
Commenting on the offering, BW Digital says, "Our recent upgrades with Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme put us in good stead to respond to ever-growing market requirements for international connectivity. Ciena and BW Digital have a long-standing relationship, and this is but one of many connectivity highlights that we hope to continue to bring to our customers."
Using Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme, the 13,540 km Hawaiki cable connects Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa, Hawaii, and the US West Coast. It features the Waveserver 5 compact interconnect platform, powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme programmable 800G technology, running over the 6500 Packet-Optical Platform Submarine Line Terminal Equipment (SLTE).
"Our GeoMesh Extreme is providing BW Digital an end-to-end network architecture, enabling the Hawaiki cable to deliver 400GbE services on its network, which is crucial in meeting the needs of today's digital consumers, enterprises, and content providers," said Ciena.
Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme
Hawaiki Transpacific Cable's 400GbE service, deployed using Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme, was validated using EXFO’s multi-technology 400G Test Set, offering an open transceiver system and an intelligent pluggable optics test application. The validation tests demonstrated smooth traffic and no latency impact across the Sydney to Hillsboro segment. BW Digital was supported by WWG Comtest, the EXFO partner in New Zealand, for the loan and technical support on the EXFO Test Set.
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Hawaiki Transpacific Cable
BW Digital develops, funds and operates digital infrastructures in the Asia-Pacific region. Hawaiki is a 15,000 km submarine cable connecting 356 million consumers in Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa, Hawaii, and the continental United States. BW Digital says being carrier-neutral and independently owned, Hawaiki offers many service and cost benefits for Content and Cloud service providers, Telcos, ISPs, and others.
It is the fastest link between Australasia and the USA, with branching units in place to connect the Pacific Islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. Hawaiki commenced commercial operations in July 2018, and with a design life of 25 years, the system will be in service until at least 2043.
