BW Digital launches 400GbE services on Hawaiki Transpacific Cable

BW Digital has announced the launch of commercial 400GbE services on the Hawaiki Transpacific Cable, powered by Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme submarine network solution. This follows a previous achievement where the cable accomplished 500Gbps channel wavelengths.

Ludovic Hutier, Chief Executive Officer at BW Digital, remarked on the recent upgrades: "Our recent upgrades with Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme put us in good stead to respond to ever-growing market requirements for international connectivity." He further added that BW Digital and Ciena share a long-standing relationship, and they aim to continue providing significant connectivity enhancements for their customers.

The Hawaiki cable, leveraging Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme, spans 13,540km and provides a link between Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa, Hawaii, and the U.S. West Coast. The cable is supported by the Waveserver 5 compact interconnect platform, which is energised by WaveLogic 5 Extreme programmable 800G technology. This operates over the 6500 Packet-Optical Platform Submarine Line Terminal Equipment (SLTE). Using Ciena's Waveserver 5, the Hawaiki cable can easily scale to meet the increasing capacity requirements of demanding cloud applications and data services. Moreover, it will enhance reliability and availability, along with delivering lower latency connectivity between Oregon and Hawaii.

Thomas Soerensen, Vice President, Global Submarine Solutions, Ciena, voiced the firm's commitment to support cable operators towards offering faster and safer services. "Our GeoMesh Extreme is providing BW Digital an end-to-end network architecture, enabling the Hawaiki cable to deliver 400GbE services on its network, crucial in meeting the needs of today's digital consumers, enterprises, and content providers," he stated.

The 400GbE service utilised by the Hawaiki Transpacific Cables, deployed through Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme, was validated with EXFO's multi-technology 400G Test Set. This inventive testing system featured an Open Transceiver System and Intelligent Pluggable Optics test application. The results demonstrated flawless traffic and no latency impact across the Sydney to Hillsboro segment. BW Digital was provided with technical support for the EXFO Test Set by WWG Comtest, the EXFO partner in New Zealand.

BW Digital develops, funds and operates digital infrastructures in the Asia-Pacific region. It is the owner of the 15,000km Hawaiki submarine cable network, connecting Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa, Hawaii and Oregon, on the US west coast since 2018. The company officially completed its its full acquisition of Hawaiki Submarine Cable that same year, Headquartered in Singapore, BW Digital develops, funds and operates digital infrastructures in the Asia-Pacific region. It is a subsidiary of BW Group, a leading global maritime company involved in shipping, maritime infrastructure, and new sustainable technologies.