Global Switch secures subsea project

The Trident Subsea Cable telecommunications infrastructure project, which will provide high-speed, high-capacity connectivity between Australia and Asia, will locate Points of Presence (PoPs) at Global Switch’s data centres in Sydney and Singapore, when the Asian region cable network is built.

Trident’s network, anticipated to be ‘ready-for-service’ in mid-2018, will connect Singapore, Indonesia and Australia with some of the highest capacity optical fibre technology available.

With four fibre pairs in total, each carrying multiple 100 Gbps optical channels (wavelengths) and capable of being upgraded in future to 400 Gbps optical channels, the Trident system is being developed to offer the raw bandwidth increasingly required by the fast-growing demand for internet services and content hosted in the Asian region.

The carrier-neutral Global Switch data centres in Sydney and Singapore are already recognised as important connectivity hubs in the Asia Pacific region and beyond, hosting a vibrant and ever-expanding telecommunications and internet ecosystem.

In Sydney, Global Switch recently commenced construction of the final stages of its Sydney East data centre following a precommitment from a leading cloud provider. Demand for the new data centre has also come from a large number of leading multinational companies requiring highly resilient and secure space for housing mission-critical IT equipment, as well as the need to be collocated within Global Switch’s network dense and low latency carrier environment.

Global Switch Singapore hosts the network PoPs of all the major international telecommunications companies, and uniquely, a number of major submarine cable systems already land directly in the facility. Virtually all the leading internet services companies have a presence including ISPs, major content owners and distributors, web portals and online social media. Together with the presence of the Singapore Internet Exchange (SGIX), these organisations transform the Global Switch data centre in Tai Seng into a convergent connectivity hub, reaching out to all parts of the globe.

Commenting on the agreement, Trident Subsea Cable Chief Executive Officer Alexis Pinto said, “We are pleased to have agreed to locate PoPs within Global Switch’s data centres as an important step towards our objective to build an independent open-access cable system, maximising the options for customers to connect directly to the infrastructure.

“There is substantial anticipated growth in online content and traffic in Asia, and the desire to locate servers near some of the world’s largest content developers in the region. By extending Trident’s cable network into Global Switch’s carrier neutral data centres in both Singapore and Sydney, Trident will be well positioned to meet the increasing demand from service providers for easy access to high-capacity international connectivity.”

The Trident cable via Perth has been designed to offer the lowest latency 100 Gbps-enabled path currently available between Australia and Asia. With an estimated round-trip delay of approximately 100 ms between Sydney and Singapore, it will provide significant performance improvements over the much longer paths on cables from Sydney via Guam or Hawaii.

Global Switch Managing Director in Sydney Damon Reid said, “Global Switch provides large-scale, carrier and cloud neutral data centres in key locations, and this agreement will give Global Switch customers even greater choice by providing direct access to Trident’s network, with no additional backhaul costs, and an exceptional low latency path between Australia and Asia. Once built, the Trident network will be an important addition to the connectivity options already available to our customers in Sydney and Singapore.”