AAPT flicks on 100G Syd-Melbourne link

AAPT has claimed it has the first Australian commercially available 100-gigabit-per-second (100G) inter-capital network link, operating between Melbourne and Sydney.

David Yuile
(Credit: AAPT)

Though the company said that a year ago it had only one request for a 10G link to its premises, AAPT reports it has received 12 requests for 10G links in the last month.

"AAPT is responding to customers' requirements for increased bandwidth, [which are] mainly driven by cloud, storage and internet usage. Three years ago, 1G was the standard customer requirement — now it is being replaced with 10G bandwidth orders," AAPT CEO David Yuile said.

AAPT initially approached Ciena about putting four or five new 10G links in place between the two cities. But because the Sydney-to-Melbourne link requires by far the largest capacity of any other Australian inter-city link, Ciena suggested doing a 100G link instead and Yuile said AAPT ran with the idea.

The service uses Ciena's 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, which uses WaveLogic coherent optical processes to achieve speeds up to 100 gigabits per second. AAPT installed the cards necessary for the link a few weeks ago, Yuile said, then tested the link and set it live on 1 April. APPT's internet, Ethernet and IP VPN customers can now take advantage of speeds up to 100Gbps.

"The added attraction of this network upgrade is that it is on our shortest path, data takes less than 5 milliseconds to travel between Melbourne and Sydney," Yuile said.

With the cost of installing new links was decreasing constantly, Yuile said that putting in a 100Gbps link cost about the same as putting in six 10Gbps links.

AAPT has had a long relationship with Nortel, and subsequently Ciena after Ciena bought Nortel's optical networking and carrier Ethernet businesses. AAPT recently chose the Ciena to upgrade its Ethernet network services.