Aqua Comms expands investment with new fibre pair on AEC-1 subsea network

Aqua Comms has announced today that it has accelerated its investment in its platform by lighting a new fibre pair on Aqua Comms’ AEC-1 system. Owned and operated by Aqua Comms, AEC-1, is Ireland’s first dedicated subsea fibre-optic network interconnecting New York, Dublin, and London.

The new fibre pair has been brought into service to address the growing bandwidth demands of Aqua Comms’ customers as requirements to rapidly, seamlessly, and reliably, move vast quantities of data continue to increase. It has also provided an opportunity for Aqua Comms to reinforce its credentials as a responsible operator with a focus on increasing supply whilst minimising power requirements to push for leading edge, innovative and sustainable Trans-Atlantic capacity solutions.

CCO, Nick Barton commented, “Aqua Comms prides itself on customer focus and operational excellence. By continually investing in our systems, we are able to demonstrate that we are at the forefront in supporting the growing demands of our customers with industry leading, high-bandwidth network services.

“From a sustainability perspective, this new fibre pair has given us an opportunity to really analyse the entire system and supplier network to make significant energy savings,” continued Barton. “Through use of new technology, we will be able to generate more capacity per fibre pair leading to better performance on power draw per Tb and therefore a significantly more sustainable system. The system will also reduce regen requirements at our different cable landing stations and simplify backhauls to create a greener path.”

The system currently uses Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme submarine network solution, powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme (WL5e) coherent optics.

In the coming months, Aqua Comms will begin deploying Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme, the industry’s first 1.6 T coherent optic solution. WL6e is estimated to result in a more than 50% reduction in energy consumption per bit in comparison to the first fibre pair.
BCS Bureau