Global Crossing, a global IP solutions provider, announced it is expanding capacity on its Atlantic Crossing 1 (AC-1) undersea fiber optic cable system to meet growing demand for broadband services. Omar Altaji, Global’s executive vice-president of worldwide carrier services, revealed these plans during his presentation at the 31st annual Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) conference in Honolulu, Hawaii.

During
the first half of the year, the company will be adding 600 Gbps of
transport capacity to the AC-1 Northern and Southern routes.



“Market
demand for trans-Atlantic bandwidth remains strong,” said Alan Mauldin,
senior analyst at TeleGeography. “According to our estimates, total
bandwidth usage on the route increased 38% between 2007 and 2008.”



Global
Crossing says it has been enhancing its IP Supercore since 2006. Each
of the Juniper T-640 routers in its IP Supercore is capable of terabit
speeds for future expansion. Early last year, the company extended it
to three South American cities to accommodate the growing traffic
generated by high-bandwidth applications in that region.



Also
last year, Global inaugurated a fiber optic cable landing on Costa
Rica’s Pacific Coast—an extension of the Pan American Crossing (PAC)
that connects the United States’ West Coast, Mexico, Panama, Venezuela
and the Virgin Islands, in addition to the East Coast of the United
States, South America, Europe and Asia via Global’s other underwater
cable systems.



Global
also expanded capacity on its Mid-Atlantic Crossing (MAC) undersea
fiber optic cable system to meet growing demand for IP and Ethernet
transport among its customers, and to enhance connectivity between
North America, Latin America and Europe.



That
upgrade added 340 Gbps transport capacity on the MAC submarine cable
system with the addition of new terminal equipment. The MAC system
provides 10 Gbps services with a current design capacity of 920 Gbps.
The new capacity will enable 10 Gbps IP ports and also Synchronous
Digital Hierarchy (SDH) at rates up to 10 Gbps (STM-64).



The
system includes about 7500 km of fiber optic cable and landing stations
in Brookhaven, N.Y.; Hollywood, Fla.; and St. Croix, Virgin Islands.
MAC connects Global’s PAC, South American Crossing (SAC) and AC-1
subsea systems to provide connectivity between North America, Latin
America and Europe.



Global’s
SAC system includes about 20,000 km of fiber optic cable and landing
stations in St. Croix, Virgin Islands; Fortaleza, Brazil; Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil; Santos, Brazil; Las Toninas, Argentina; Valparaiso,
Chile; Lurin, Peru; Fort Amador, Panama; and Puerto Viejo, Venezuela.
Fort Amador and Puerto Viejo are shared by Global Crossing’s PAC
undersea system.



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