Reliance Globalcom upgrades FNAL submarine cable in Asia region

Reliance Globalcom, the submarine cable unit of Reliance Communications, today said it has upgraded its Flag North Asia Loop (FNAL) submarine cable network in the Asia region to support 40 GB per second of data transfer.

FNAL, a terrestrial backhaul network cable on the company's FLAG network, has been upgraded using network specialist Ciena Corporation's next generation optical transport technology.

The company said the introduction of new business models such as content monetisation, video broadcasting and distributed storage area networking are pushing network needs beyond 10 GBPS wavelengths.

"The upgradation helps Reliance Globalcom to address this huge bandwidth demand and between its Taipei and Seoul points-of-presence (PoPs)," the company said in a statement.

Matching terrestrial backhaul capacity and performance from the cable landing station all the way back to the inland PoP is critical to building a seamless and cost-effective global network, it added.

''Asia is currently among the leading regions where the Internet and broadband penetration rates are high but there is still a significant potential for bandwidth growth. Reliance Globalcom is committed to meet this growth by upgrading its network consistently in a cost-effective manner with the latest transmission technologies,'' Reliance Globalcom president and CEO Punit Garg said.

Earlier this year, Reliance announced it would use Nasdaq-listed Ciena's solutions to power its European network. In November, Reliance Globalcom has selected Ciena Corp's solution to upgrade its Flag Europe-Asia submarine network.

''High-bandwidth applications such as video and cloud computing continue to put pressure on today's networks, requiring carriers like Reliance to deploy technologies that not only increase capacity but also provide more intelligent, adaptable networks. Ciena's coherent optical solutions increase network capacities to existing undersea cables and equip carriers to quickly respond to changing traffic and service demands,'' said Anthony McLachlan, vice president and general manager, Asia Pacific, Ciena.