Telstra, together with Ericsson and Ciena, has announced a new rapid restoration service on its busiest subsea cable routes in Asia, to help keep customers continuously connected.

The new continuous connection service combines the vast scale and diversity of Telstra’s subsea cable network, with flexible programmable infrastructure technology through Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme solution.

Continuous connection builds on Telstra’s assured availability “Always on” service - a world first offering to key routes in Asia - which currently offers restoration within eight hours. Telstra’s new service will reduce that time from hours to minutes – a significant reduction to current restoration service arrangements in Asia.

Telstra’s Head of Connectivity and Platforms, Nadya Melic, said that following successful trials in December, the new service is now available on three of Telstra’s intra-Asia routes.

“The Asian region presents one of the most challenging environments for subsea cable systems. Busy and shallow shipping ports in Hong Kong and Singapore, high-levels of fishing activity and an ecosystem prone to natural disasters, all threaten to disrupt or damage underwater infrastructure,” Ms Melic said.

“Damage to a subsea cable can take weeks or even months to fix. But with our new continuous connection service, we are able to reroute customers impacted by potential damage to another subsea cable path on our three path network in less than 30 minutes.

“Through Telstra’s large subsea cable footprint and Ciena’s innovative technology, we are able to help remove the pain of an extended outage from our customers, with almost seamless restoration of their services.”

Together with Ericsson, Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme solution increases the intelligence of Telstra’s leading subsea network, enabling rapid responses to changing network demands, all without manual intervention.

The technology solution provides increased visualisation over Telstra network, boosting resiliency, and providing the flexibility and agility to give customers fast, reliable data access.

Ericsson’s Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand, Emilio Romeo said: “Through this innovative technology we are supporting Telstra to meet ever-increasing network demands and providing unprecedented levels of reliability, automation and intelligence. This solution gives Telstra increased capacity to adapt to network changes, ensuring customers receive the best possible service.”

Ciena’s Vice President and General Manager of Asia Pacific and Japan, Rick Seeto said: “We are seeing a growing trend for more agile, resilient and adaptive networks that use flexible, instrumented photonics and advanced software control. These innovations allow network providers like Telstra to not only scale their network and boost capacity but also protect traffic and service delivery.”

“We are seeing a growing trend for more agile, resilient and adaptive networks that use flexible, instrumented photonics and advanced software control. These innovations allow network providers like Telstra to not only scale their network and boost capacity but also protect traffic and service delivery.”

The continuous connection service is expected to benefit a broad range of customers, including financial services organisations, carriers and cloud services providers, saving time, money and improving the experience they provide to its end users.

The partners announced the new service ahead of this week’s Pacific Telecommunications Council Conference in Hawaii.

About Telstra
Telstra is a leading telecommunications and information services company. We offer a full range of services and compete in all telecommunications markets in Australia, operating the largest mobile and Wi-Fi networks. Globally, we provide end-to-end solutions including managed network services, global connectivity, cloud, voice, colocation, conferencing and satellite solutions. We have licenses in Asia, Europe and the United States and offer access to more than 2,000 points of presence across the globe. For more information visit www.telstra.com.

About Ericsson
Ericsson enables communications service providers to capture the full value of connectivity. The company’s portfolio spans Networks, Digital Services, Managed Services, and Emerging Business and is designed to help our customers go digital, increase efficiency and find new revenue streams. Ericsson’s investments in innovation have delivered the benefits of telephony and mobile broadband to billions of people around the world. The Ericsson stock is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm and on Nasdaq New York. www.ericsson.com.

About CienaCiena (NYSE: CIEN) is a networking systems, services and software company. We provide solutions that help our clients create the Adaptive Network™ in response to the constantly changing demands of their users. By delivering best-in-class networking technology through high-touch consultative relationships, we build the world’s most agile networks with automation, openness and scale. For updates on Ciena, follow us on Twitter @Ciena, LinkedIn, the Ciena Insights blog, or visit www.ciena.com.

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