AAG Upgrades Trans-Pacific Submarine Cable Network with Ciena

Programmable GeoMesh solution increases network capacity and seamlessly upgrades 20,000 km cable route connecting Southeast Asia to the United States

The Asia America Gateway (AAG) consortium recently selected Ciena® (NYSE:CIEN) for a 100G expansion to significantly enhance its trans-Pacific cable network to address the growing demand for anywhere, anytime broadband access. Ciena’s converged packet optical solutions will add multi-terabit data capacity, and enable AAG’s network to reliably meet the demands of on-demand data networking services and traffic growth driven by mobile applications, high-definition video and cloud computing.

Key Facts:

• AAG is a 20,000 km submarine communications cable system, connecting Southeast Asia with the U.S. mainland, across the Pacific Ocean via Guam and Hawaii. It provides connectivity between Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Hong Kong SAR, Philippines, Guam, Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast.

• The AAG submarine cable system was designed to serve as an alternative connectivity and as a complementary solution for links between Southeast Asia to the United States. The AAG cable system offers a more secure and diversified route that avoids the hazardous Pacific Ring, thus mitigating the effects from natural disasters such as earthquakes or tsunamis. AAG is also known as the first direct Terabit submarine cable system that offers competitive latency between Southeast Asia and the United States.

• The AAG consortium will deploy Ciena’s GeoMesh submarine solution, including the 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, powered by WaveLogic coherent optics with Flexible Grid technology, to maximize ultimate capacity and provide greater return on investment of its subsea cable assets. With Ciena’s plug-and-play programmable network elements and 100G coherent technology, the AAG consortium is able to cost-effectively extend the lifetime lifespan of its network by increasing the ultimate cable capacity by as much as three times the original design capacity in some segments.

• In addition, Ciena’s OneControl Unified Management System together with the integrated test set capabilities of WaveLogic will provide the operators of AAG end-to-end network management and visibility for early detection, diagnosis, and prioritization of any faults, ensuring that the operators of AAG can resolve issues proactively and maintain network availability.

• These network platforms lay the foundation for an OPⁿ® architecture that allows the operators of AAG to easily adapt to changing network demands, deliver simplified network operations, and lower their operating and maintenance costs.

• Ciena is also providing installation and commissioning via its Specialist Services portfolio as part of this turnkey project.

Executive Comments:

• “The AAG system provides critical connectivity between multiple countries in Asia and the United States, so it is critical that our network is highly reliable and capable of supporting our evolving needs. Ciena’s packet-optical and unified management solutions allow us to cost-effectively transform our infrastructure to a scalable, flexible and programmable network to support the high-bandwidth applications that our customers demand.” - Mohamad Izani Karim, Management Committee Chairman, AAG

• “Content-driven capacity demand within Asia and on trans-Pacific routes is forecast to grow at a 33 percent compound annual growth rate – or an increase of more than five times – between 2014 and 2020. By upgrading with Ciena, submarine network operators like AAG can both seamlessly scale their networks to address those needs while also providing an intelligent and on-demand end-user experience.” - Ed McCormack, Vice President and General Manager of Submarine Systems, Ciena