Southern Cross hits key milestone for NEXT cable

Southern Cross Cable Network has secured regulatory approval to build the US landing station for its new 72 Tbps Southern Cross NEXT cable.

The US Federal Communications Commission has granted the company approval to build the landing station at Hermosa Beach in California.

The US$350 million ($490.7m) Southern Cross NEXT cable will link Australia and New Zealand with the US, with branches to the Pacific nations of Fiji, Tokelau and Kiribati. Once complete it is expected to deliver the lowest latency connection between ANZ and the US.

From California, the cable will interconnect with Southern Cross’s existing data centre locations in Los Angeles — the Equinix LA1 and CoreSite LA1 — and Silicon Valley — the Equinix SV1, Equinix SV8 and CoreSite SV1.

This will allow customers to take advantage of route redundancy by leveraging the existing Southern Cross ecosystem.

Southern Cross President and CEO Laurie Miller said the company was proud to have completed the approvals process despite the disruption posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Obtaining licensing approval is a significant achievement for the project and the Southern Cross team, particularly in these turbulent times,” he said.

“The ability of our team and consultants and suppliers to not only minimise project delays but continue to achieve these significant milestones ahead of schedule is testament to the quality of our partners and the Southern Cross team.”

Image courtesy Southern Cross Cable Network.