Digital Realty Trust, Inc. has announced that it is partnering with Aqua Comms Limited (AquaComms), a provider of scalable, subsea capacity-based network solutions, in deploying its new transatlantic fiber optic system, America Europe Connect (AEConnect). Spanning more than 5,400 kilometers across the Atlantic Ocean, between Long Island and the west coast of Ireland, with stubbed branching units for future landings, AEConnect is currently expected to be available in Digital Realty’s data center at 32 Avenue of the Americas by the end of 2015, and the company plans to expand availability to its two other New York facilities at 111 8th Avenue and 60 Hudson Street as well. The subsea cable features the latest technology of 130 gigabits per second by 100 gigabits per second, per fiber pair, which will provide low-latency connectivity from New York to London and beyond to greater Europe.
“Digital Realty’s combination of 60 Hudson Street, 111 8th Avenue and 32 Avenue of the Americas creates a market-leading trifecta for data center and colocation services in the New York metropolitan area,” said Anthony Rossabi, senior vice president & managing director, Telx. “With AEConnect linking New York and London, we are excited to offer enterprises, carriers and mobile operators access to private network bandwidth between two of the largest commercial centers in the world.”
AquaComms’ AEConnect is part of the new generation of subsea cable systems connecting New York and London that represent an update of the systems built nearly 15 years ago. It is expected to revolutionize connectivity between North America and Europe, leveraging the latest software-defined network (SDN) technology to provide global data centers, cloud-based networks and content providers with low-latency and high-reliability solutions to satisfy their growing transatlantic capacity requirements.
“We are excited about this collaboration as Digital Realty’s global footprint and unique ecosystem of open solutions will allow us to meet the continuously increasing demand for reliable, high-capacity connectivity between North America and Europe,” said Greg Varisco, Chief Operations Officer at AquaComms. “Digital Realty offers cutting edge data center solutions in the New York metropolitan area and beyond, which will allow our customers to extend existing networks and expand into new markets.”