Telecom upgrade expands capacity

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Telecom New Zealand has upgraded its Auckland-Wellington fibre optic backbone link in one of the region's largest installations of dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) infrastructure.

The upgrade, understood to be worth at least $20 million, was installed by US-based networking manufacturer Cisco Systems.

DWDM technology, which allows a single cable to carry different traffic streams by splitting light waves into different colours, is being used by telcos around the world to expand the capacity of existing fibre optic networks economically.

"It means Telecom can scale up its bandwidth capabilities without ploughing more fibre into the ground," Cisco New Zealand managing director Tim Hemingway said.

Cisco's ONS 15801 system - which will increase network transport capacity by 48 times, from a total of 12.5 Gbits on 5 channels up to a maximum capability of 600 Gbits on 60 channels - has been deployed across two cable routes between Auckland and Wellington.

The 787km western route passes through Hamilton, New Plymouth, Wanganui and Levin, and the 897km eastern route through Paeroa, Taupo, Napier and Masterton.

The system will also allow traffic from rural centres to be transmitted much more quickly, according to Cisco.

The upgrade will be capable of handling several kinds of traffic, including IP (internet protocol), and ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode), used for piping data, voice and video over corporate networks.

Telecom's DWDM upgrade follows a similar $14 million project by Clear Communications, completed last August, which increased the capacity of its North Island backbone network with equipment supplied by Canadian manufacturer Nortel Networks.

Telstra Saturn also has selected Nortel to supply DWDM equipment for a $10 million optical fibre network.