The upgrade was completed ahead of schedule and has resulted in a 100% active capacity increase of the cable, enabling faster broadband access to users along the multi-regional data superhighway amid surges in 5G and video streaming services.
“Ciena is helping us take on future network challenges and maximize the SEA-ME-WE 5 cable with state-of-the-art technology. With Ciena, we are able to deliver the benefits of greater capacity and flexibility to our customers sooner than expected as this latest cable upgrade was completed ahead of schedule,” said Luigi Sangiorgio and Mukthar Bin Embong, PG co-chairs of SEA-ME-WE 5.
Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme, which features the 6500 Packet-Optical platform and supports an open architecture, will help the 20,000km SEA-ME-WE 5 cable system meet unpredictable traffic demands and provide new levels of capacity and flexibility for service providers. Additionally, Ciena’s WaveLogic Ai platform will help lower the cost per 100Gbps significantly by increasing the capacity per wave up to 300Gbps.
It also enables SEA-ME-WE 5’s customers to rapidly scale capacity, protect traffic from faults, and lower total cost of network ownership. In addition, SEA-ME-WE 5 will also leverage Ciena’s Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) domain controller software to get real-time visibility into the performance of the network.
Ian Clarke, vice president of global submarine sales at Ciena, added: “SEA-ME-WE 5’s latest upgrade is a great reflection of the dynamic digital transformation that’s taking place along the Europe to Asia route, which is experiencing an overwhelming demand for capacity. Ciena’s strength in developing subsea innovations affords us a keen understanding of the right mix of technologies needed to transition to adaptive networks that leverage intelligence, scalability and programmability.”
The SEA-ME-WE 5 cable system, which was originally designed with a capacity of 24Tbps, is currently under upgrade to over 36Tbps on three-fibre pairs, which will make it fully capable of accommodating the future demand of data from other SEA-ME-WE 5 upgrades with Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme
Ciena has completed a significant upgrade to the South East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe 5 (SEA-ME-WE 5) submarine cable system to support enterprise data exchange, internet TV, and online gaming.
