Ciena has partnered with Trans Pacific Networks (TPN) to boost undersea connectivity for the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

Based in the Cayman Islands, TPN is delivering a new, direct route from Southeast Asia to the U.S., anchored by flagship cable system Echo, which spans 9,972 miles (16,051km) with a promise of lower latency for Google Cloud clients. The company is also expanding its transpacific presence with additional systems to form an integrated network, including the Tabua cable, which is part of Google’s South Pacific Connect initiative.

Connecting the U.S. to Australia and Fiji, Tabua is made up of 16 fiber pairs on its trunk and branching segments, with each pair designed for approximately 17 Tb/s in capacity, for an overall system capacity of 272 Tb/s.

Underpinning the builds will be Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme, which incorporates the WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) coherent optics solution, as well as the 6500 Reconfigurable Line System (RLS). These offerings were tapped last year by Norway’s Altibox for a 1.6-Tb/s subsea transmission, alongside Trans America Fiber System for a fiber network linking the U.S. with Central America and the Caribbean.

The announcement touted resilience, capacity, and cost efficiency via Ciena's backbone, promising high-speed and low-latency digital connectivity across the APAC region.

“TPN is paving the way for a more connected digital experience for half-a-billion users across the U.S. and Pacific,” said Alfred Au Yeung, CEO at Trans Pacific Networks. “With Ciena’s innovative optical solutions and expertise in subsea cable architecture, we can boost capacity and continue to drive economic growth across the Indo-Pacific.”

“Submarine cable operators around the globe are preparing their networks for the AI era,” added Brodie Gage, senior VP, global products & supply chain at Ciena. “As demand for bandwidth-intensive AI workloads and cloud-based services continues to surge, the need for high-capacity infrastructure has never been more critical. Ciena’s coherent optical innovations will enable TPN to achieve the highest levels of capacity, resiliency, and cost efficiency.”

U.S. specialists Pioneer Consulting, which has partnered with TPN since 2017 on the Echo subsea cable system, will execute the project via managed route engineering and technical quality assurance.