100 gigabits per second upgrade across Tata Communications’ TGN-Pacific and Intra-Asia submarine fibre networks to meet increased bandwidth demands

Tata Communications, a leading provider of A New World of Communications™, and Ciena® Corporation (NYSE: CIEN), the network specialist, today announced the launch of 100 gigabits per second upgrade along the TGN-Pacific (TGN-P) submarine cable system that connects the U.S. to Japan and  three routes in the TGN-Intra-Asia (TGN-IA) market across Asia. With this latest in a series of investments, Tata Communications becomes the only private subsea cable owner that has 100G deployed across major routes around the world on its own infrastructure.

With Ciena’s 6500 Converged Packet Optical platform and GeoMesh solution, Tata Communications is upgrading its TGN-P submarine cables – which is the longest segment in route km and believed to be the highest capacity subsea cables deployed in the Pacific – to 100G. As a result, Tata Communications now offers 100G transport services on its TGN-P submarine cable system that links the U.S. to Japan, a distance spanning 22,300 km. The cable connects Emi, Chiba to Hillsboro, Oregon and Toyohashi as well as Aichi Prefecture to Hillsboro, Oregon. In addition, Ciena’s solutions also supports Tata Communications’ Intra-Asia network, which spans roughly 6,700 km.

Genius Wong, Senior Vice President, Global Network Services, Tata Communications says, “We continue to make significant investments to our global network as we understand that connectivity is one of the most critical backbones in a world where hyper-connectivity has become a part of the everyday fabric of life and business. Investments such as the 100G upgrade to our TGN-Pacific submarine cable and Intra-Asia routes enable us to meet customer demand for high-bandwidth services and applications, whilst ensuring end-to-end network performance for our enterprise and carrier customers across the US and Asia.”

Based on Ciena’s OPnarchitecture for programmable network infrastructures that deliver much lower cost-at-scale, Ciena’s GeoMesh and WaveLogic solutions enable Tata Communications to better monetise its network and provide flexibility to its customers. This also allows them to handle capacity demands driven by high-bandwidth services such as cloud computing, video and mobile communications.

With Ciena’s OneControl Unified Management System, Tata Communications can also benefit from multi-layer service management capabilities that support streamlined service activation, fault management and performance monitoring.

Jason Phipps, General Manager, North America, Ciena says, “As longtime partners, Ciena and Tata Communications have leveraged Ciena’s technology to increase the capacity, extend the life and improve the availability of Tata Communications’ global network. With the most recent upgrades, Tata Communications is expanding these attributes across its Pacific cable to deliver resilient, low latency 100G services between North America and Asia.”

Alan Mauldin, Research Director, Telegeography says, "TeleGeography forecasts trans-Pacific bandwidth demand to increase 7-fold by 2020. Tata Communications' upgrade to 100G technology on the TGN-Pacific system is a key step in meeting customer requirements for high-capacity, cost-effective bandwidth. With the highest potential capacity of all existing trans-Pacific systems, the TGN-Pacific system will continue to play a leading role in addressing future demand growth."

These upgrades complement Tata Communications’ previous GeoMesh deployment on its TGN-Atlantic (TGN-A) submarine network that links the U.S. and Europe and allows Tata Communications to meet its customers’ surging bandwidth demands with lower latency and seamless scalability.

Tata Communications’ global connectivity services are built on the world’s largest and most advanced global subsea cable network, which enables carriers and enterprises to connect almost anywhere in the world. The Tata Communications global network (TGN) consists of 210,000 kilometers (kms) of terrestrial and subsea network fiber, reaching countries representing 99.7 percent of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Its IP Transit Network (AS6453) makes up 20 percent of the world’s Internet routes and carries 4,200 petabits of traffic per month on its Internet backbone.

Ciena and Tata Communications are participating in the Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) 2014 Conference in Honolulu from January 19th - 22nd.

Supporting resources:

  • Tata Communications
    • New       World Blog: How close is the 100G future?
    • Backgrounder: Global Network Services
    • Network map: Global network ring map

Forward-looking and cautionary statements

Certain words and statements in this release concerning Tata Communications and its prospects, and other statements, including those relating to Tata Communications’ expected financial position, business strategy, the future development of Tata Communications’ operations, and the general economy in India, are forward-looking statements. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, including financial, regulatory and environmental, as well as those relating to industry growth and trend projections, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of Tata Communications, or industry results, to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The important factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from such forward-looking statements include, among others, failure to increase the volume of traffic on Tata Communications’ network; failure to develop new products and services that meet customer demands and generate acceptable margins; failure to successfully complete commercial testing of new technology and information systems to support new products and services, including voice transmission services; failure to stabilize or reduce the rate of price compression on certain of the company’s communications services; failure to integrate strategic acquisitions and changes in government policies or regulations of India and, in particular, changes relating to the administration of Tata Communications’ industry; and, in general, the economic, business and credit conditions in India. Additional factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from such forward-looking statements, many of which are not in Tata Communications’ control, include, but are not limited to, those risk factors discussed in Tata Communications’ various filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Tata Communications is under no obligation to, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, update or alter its forward-looking statements.

About Tata Communications 

Tata Communications Limited along with its subsidiaries (Tata Communications) is a leading global provider of A New World of Communications™. With a leadership position in emerging markets, Tata Communications leverages its advanced solutions capabilities and domain expertise across its global and pan-India network to deliver managed solutions to multi-national enterprises, service providers and Indian consumers.

The Tata Communications global network includes one of the most advanced and largest submarine cable networks and a Tier-1 IP network with connectivity to more than 200 countries and territories across 400 PoPs, as well as nearly 1 million square feet of data centre and collocation space worldwide.

Tata Communications' depth and breadth of reach in emerging markets includes leadership in Indian enterprise data services, leadership in global international voice, and strategic investments in South Africa (Neotel), Sri Lanka (Tata Communications Lanka Limited) and Nepal (United Telecom Limited). Tata Communications Limited is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India. www.tatacommunications.com.

About Ciena
Ciena (NYSE: CIEN) is the network specialist. We collaborate with customers worldwide to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and fundamentally change the way they perform and compete. Ciena leverages its deep expertise in packet and optical networking and distributed software automation to deliver solutions in alignment with OPn, its approach for building open next-generation networks. We enable a high-scale, programmable infrastructure that can be controlled and adapted by network-level applications, and provide open interfaces to coordinate computing, storage and network resources in a unified, virtualized environment. For updates on Ciena news, follow us on Twitter @Ciena or on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/company/ciena. Investors are encouraged to review the Investors section of our website at www.ciena.com/investors, where we routinely post press releases, SEC filings, recent news, financial results, and other announcements. From time to time we exclusively post material information to this website along with other disclosure channels that we use.

Note to Ciena Investors
Forward-looking statements. This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof; and Ciena's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied, due to risks and uncertainties associated with its business, which include the risk factors disclosed in its Report on Form 10-K, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on December 20, 2013. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding Ciena's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward-looking words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "should," "will," and "would" or similar words. Ciena assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.