Cable & Wireless Networks (C&W) has selected Ciena to upgrade its Colombia-Florida Express (CFX-1) and East West Cable (EWC) subsea cables.
The telco is aiming to boost speeds beyond 400Gbps, as it looks to offer advanced broadband and IP services, and will use Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme solution to carry out the upgrade work.
C&W's CFX-1 cable is 2,400km in length and connects the United States, Jamaica, and Colombia with less than 25ms latency. Meanwhile, the EKW cable is 1,700km long and connects the British Virgin Islands, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic. The cables were launched in 2008 and 2011 respectively.
"The additional capacity we are adding at CFX-1 and EWC with Ciena allows us to meet this demand directly, enriching our service offerings for customers while sustainably and cost-effectively extending the life of these cable systems,” said C&W Networks vice president and general manager Chris Coles.
Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme solution will provide C&W with increased capacity, leveraging its 6500 Packet-Optical platform, which is powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme coherent optics. This means that the CFX-1 cable sees a 10 times increase in capacity, enabling over 32Tbps with 100Gbps to 400Gbps services.
C&W Networks operates the largest subsea multi-ring fiber-optic network throughout the greater Caribbean, Central American, and Andean regions. The company is a subsidiary of Cable & Wireless Communications and connects close to 40 markets, while its fully protected ringed submarine fiber optic network spans more than 50,000km.
One of its biggest cable routes is the Caribbean Optical-ring System (ARCOS-1), which is 8,700km in length and connects 24 landing points across 15 countries including the US, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and many other Caribbean and Central American countries.
