C&W Networks Selects Xtera for Submarine Cable Upgrade

By Aiswarya Lakshmi January 28, 2016

C&W Networks, part of Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC), the largest telecommunications service provider across the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico and United States with more than 48,000 miles of subsea fiber-optic network has selected Xtera Communications, Inc., a leading provider of high-capacity, cost-effective optical transport solutions, for upgrading its submarine cable systems in the western Atlantic ocean and the Caribbean Sea to 100G.

By introducing Xtera’s 100G coherent solution, C&W Networks continues to offer robust services across 42 countries with superior reliability and scalability of international wholesale capacity.

C&W Networks has bolstered its subsea network capacity by upgrading several unrepeatered and repeatered segments to 100G, using Xtera’s Nu-Wave Optima multi-purpose optical networking platform.

The submarine cable systems were upgraded with new 100G channels to include the 1,570 km Gemini – Bermuda cable system, the 1,700 km Caribbean – US (CBUS) cable system, the 1,700 km East West Cable (EWC) system, the 1,440 km festoon Eastern Caribbean Fiber System (ECFS), and part of the 8,700 km ARCOS-1 submarine ring.

“The global build-out of data centers, coupled with rapid deployment of cloud-based services, are driving renewed demand for even higher fixed and burst rate connections with emphasis on high availability through redundancy,” said Paul Scott, President of C&W Networks.

Paul added: “Our goal is to proactively prepare our networks with the right technology to efficiently address the evolving business needs of today and the future. We are very excited to enhance our network performance to100G and 100G+ and Xtera was a natural choice for us.”

The same optical networking platform was used over the unrepeatered and repeatered segments, enabling a unified, seamless network from an operational perspective. For the upgrade of unrepeatered segments, advanced 100G optical channel technology combined with Xtera’s Wise Raman solution raised the capacity to multi terabits per second level even on the longest unrepeatered segments (approaching 400 km spans).

This combination of technologies also enabled C&W Networks to bypass some intermediate sites when no local add/drop of 100G waves was needed, eliminating the need for back-to-back terminal equipment as found in the previous network design based on 10G optical channel technology.

“Strengthening our relationship with C&W Networks, these new upgrade projects are further evidence of the confidence network operators place in Xtera’s capabilities to improve subsea optical transmission infrastructure already deployed across the world,” said Jon Hopper, President and Chief Executive Officer of Xtera.

Jon added: “Upgrading existing subsea cable systems to increase their capacity and extend their lifetime – from a capacity-cost perspective – is part of our subsea solution portfolio, which includes subsea cable recovery and re-lay, and as well as new build.”