Int’l Bytes: CityFibre, EXA, Nokia, Southern Cross, ASN

Three interesting bits of news from Europe and one from down under.

CityFibre is looking to quash rumors that it is for sale. The Telegraph had reported discussions between the company and Virgin Media O2 of some sort of transaction to avoid a cash crunch of some sort. However, CityFibre says that instead that it expects to announce a financing deal ‘shortly’. The company has been aggressively building out FTTH to some 4.3M premises across the UK so far, a process that has built up some £3.9 billion in debt. Note, however, that CityFibre didn’t say that such talks didn’t happen.

EXA Infrastructure has sold some transatlantic capacity to GÉANT, the European research network. GÉANT will be taking up spectrum IRUs on two of EXA’s transatlantic cable systems in a 15 year deal. The IRUs will underly two new routes between the European NREN and its American counterparts, such as ESnet. GÉANT is anticipating growing demand for bandwidth in the scientific community.

Nokia, CSC, and SURF teamed up for a new trial of quantum-safe speed and capacity in May. They demonstrated a 1.2Tbps quantum-safe connection between Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Kajaani in Finland, a span of 3500km. The trial leveraged Nokia’s IP/MPLS routing and quantum-safe optical networking gear. Kajaani is where the pan-European LUMI supercomputer sits and where a major AI project is also underway.

And a new cable between Sydney, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand took another major step toward reality. Southern Cross, ASN, and OMS Group have signed a supply contract for the SX Tasman Express cable system. As envisioned, SX-TX will deliver 400Tbps of capacity across 16 fibre pairs, and will be ready for service in 2028 if all goes well.

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Categories: Fiber Networks · Financials · FTTH · Mergers and Acquisitions · Security · Undersea cables