Demands Soars for Protected Capacity

Media Statement from Southern Cross Cable Network

Demands Soars for Protected Capacity

Protected capacity is what the market wants, according to Ross Pfeffer Marketing Director Asia Pacific for Southern Cross Cable Network.

Addressing an audience today at Australia's 2nd Wholesale Carrier Service Conference at the Millennium Hotel in Sydney, Mr Pfeffer said that as part of a new marketing package released at the company's second Data Gathering Meeting in Hawaii in August, Southern Cross was now offering both protected and unprotected capacity on its triple-ring network.

"Over 95% of demand in Hawaii was for protected capacity," Mr Pfeffer said.

"When Southern Cross was initiated back in 1996 our plan was to build a single strand cable. But when we surveyed market opinion we found very strong demand for protected capacity. Our customers are now confirming the wisdom of our decision to build a double strand, triple-ring network."

"With the growth in the Internet and the development of e-commerce, Australian businesses are increasingly reliant on connectivity with North America, the heart of the Internet, to do business," said Mr Pfeffer.

"If a cable breaks it is typically out of service for 12 days. But if the break occurs in depths greater than two kilometres, repairs have been known to take up to 50 days. The impact on Australian business of losing its connections to the Internet for even the shortest time is becoming more and more unthinkable."

"It's no surprise to us that, despite a 30 per cent discount for unprotected connections, customers just don't want to take that risk."

Southern Cross has taken a number of steps to maximise the security of its 29,000 kilometre network. These include dual cable stations in Sydney, Auckland, Hawaii and California, burial of some 1,600 kilometres of the cable in depths of less than two kilometres, the armouring of 2,200 kilometres of cable, as well as state-of-the-art network architecture.

"The most important aspect of Southern Cross' security is the laying of two cables between Australia and the United States to form a protected ring network. By deploying Wave-Division Multiplexing and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy to deliver a self-healing design, in the unlikely event of a physical break in the cable signals will still be transmitted around the other side of the network. Services will be seamlessly restored within 100 milliseconds," Mr Pfeffer said.

"All this adds up to network availability greater than 99.999% compared with an industry standard for single strand cables of 98%. This may not seem like much, but over 95% of our customers are telling us that it is."

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www.southerncrosscables.com

For further information contact: Geoff Bilbrough Media Contact Southern Cross Cable Network Tel +64-4-4999-111

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