By AJC Press Release

Australia Japan Cable has completed what it believes is a strategically critical and market imperative product initiative which will allow its customers to access scalable, low cost bandwidth between Australia and Japan via Guam. 

“In recent months we've seen some Northern Hemisphere submarine networks to the US embrace Ethernet technology. What it means for customers to and from Australia using AJC is an end to end scalable connection which aligns to capacity purchase strategies such as just in time capacity requirements,” said Chris Kessikidis, AJC's Commercial Director. 

AJC has successfully completed testing and released the product on its network by equipping Ethernet Private Line facilities at all its 6 cable stations, Shima and Maruyama in Japan, Tumon Bay and Tanguisson in Guam and Paddington and Oxford Falls in Sydney Australia. 

AJC's Ethernet Private Line product is delivered using Gigabit (1000M) interfaces that scale in VC4 (150M) increments. 10 Gigabit interfaces are also available. AJC's Head of Engineering Philip Murphy said, “While international submarine networks, including AJC, have historically provided connectivity using Protected and Unprotected SDH capacity, there has been a trend in some markets to migrate Ethernet connectivity from local to national to international. The availability of Ethernet interfaces positions AJC to assist customers to seamlessly extend their Ethernet connectivity between Australia and suitably equipped international locations. 

AJC Ethernet Private Line is delivered on AJC's highly reliable network which includes separate cable stations in each of Australia, Guam and Japan for landing site diversity and wavelength protection to improve availability of Ethernet transported on those wavelengths. 

Testing of AJC's Ethernet Private Line verified performance between Australia, Guam and Japan of transmission scaling up to full rate and for frames up to jumbo size of 9224 bytes.” 

Internet usage is exploding due to high broadband penetration and growth in subscriber demand. The product positions AJC in emerging target segments for capacity growth. ISP's, content providers and mobile operators need to be able to scale capacity as they need it. AJC recognizes their profitability depends on this flexibility. “To achieve this AJC has worked very hard to supply the wet portion and implement partnerships which deliver connectivity to co-location facilities and customer premises, transiting our cable stations,” said Chris. AJC's Ethernet Private Line service offers a standard Gigabit level port for customers and the flexibility to scale on its network as required during contracted periods seamlessly and quickly. 

Options also exist to cater for short term, seasonal or alternate protection requirements. “In a highly competitive market where pricing dictates the sale and product differentiation is essential, AJC knows very well that it needs to deliver propositions which allow us to stand out from the crowd. 

“We know our products are aggressively priced and we won't be undercut on our route from Australia to Japan via Guam. Now we have delivered a solution which broadens our target audience offering a product that leverages our core bandwidth. That's how we get competitive advantage and drive costs down for our customers. If we want to incent our customers to choose AJC we need to help them cut their costs. This means delivering greater value all the way through the sales function. Our products and processes continue to do that”, said Mr. Kessikidis.