Jan/Feb 19 - ChannelVision Magazine

PCCW Global, the international operating division of Hong Kong’s HKT, is collaborating with Orange to jointly land the high-speed 12,000 km-long Pakistan & East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) cable in Marseille, France, terminating the system in a carrier-neutral data center and bringing the cable sys- tem into service in 2020. When complete, the high-speed PEACE cable system will offer the shortest routes from China to Eu- rope and Africa, interconnecting three of the world’s most populous continents. The backbone of the project will interconnect Paki- stan, Djibouti, Egypt, Kenya and France, providing critical intercon- nections to key Asian, European, and African economic corridors, with additional planned landing points and extensions. Africa has the fastest-growing youth population in the world and is a market particularly ripe for in- vestment because of the growing number of internet users and in- creasing demand for connectivity. Innovative new technologies are being deployed in the con- struction phase of the project which will enable bandwidth al- location to be modified during the lifetime of the cable, said PCCW. Once the cable is live, individual cable stakeholders will have the ability to architect and implement the network to their own specifica- tions, without impacting others us- ing the same cable system. “Existing congested data routes between Europe and Asia will receive a significant boost when PEACE becomes active from Marseille,” said Marc Halbfinger, CEO of PCCW Global. “In addition, Africa is steadily increasing its de- mand for world-class connectivity services and PEACE will provide the backbone infrastructure that is critical for the continent’s contin- ued dramatic growth. Both envi- ronments will be further served by Belt & Road objectives.”  Equinix announced plans to build a new International Business Exchange (IBX) data center in Hel- sinki, Finland. Dubbed HE7, the data center’s first phase will cost approximately $20 million (€17M) and is scheduled to open sometime in the second quarter of 2019. The new HE7 data center will enable customers to interconnect securely with 135-plus businesses in Finland with an emphasis on leading financial services and con- tent and digital media companies, said Equinix. HE7 will add 250 cabi- nets in its initial phase and expand to 1,475 cabinets at full build. The data center will use 100 percent green energy. Equinix views Helsinki as a digital gateway bridging the gap between Russia, the Baltic states and the rest of Europe through di- rect digital routes. Helsinki’s strate- gic location is reinforced by strong infrastructure in Europe includ- ing subsea cables. This includes connectivity to the Cinia C-Lion1 submarine data cable between Fin- land and Germany. Equinix custom- ers can benefit from a capacity of 144 terabytes per second and a latency below 20 milliseconds be- tween Helsinki and Frankfurt. PCCW, Orange Collaborate to Land PEACE cable in France Equinix to Build Helsinki Data Center Telstra Enables 5G in Sydney, Melbourne Following the conclusion of Australia’s 3.6GHz spectrum auction at the end of last year, Telstra announced that it enabled 5G for the first time at sites in Melbourne and Sydney. Having started work on switching to 5G technology at its cell sites back in August of 2018, Telstra said it has become the first of the country’s operators to have 5G-enabled sites in all major cities. In total, Telstra expected to have enabled 5G at a total of 200 mobile base stations by the end of 2018. Looking ahead, Telstra has said it intends to continue expanding 5G coverage to more cities, regional centers and high traffic areas in 2019, while it noted that, when commercial 5G devices become avail- able to buy in 2019, its network “will be ready to connect them.” Telstra now has 60MHz of contiguous 5G-suitable spectrum in all major capital cities and between 50MHz-80MHz of contiguous 5G spectrum in regional areas, said the company. EdgeConneX Expands Europe Footprint into Poland EdgeConneX recently acquired the Linxdata- center facility in Warsaw, Poland. The company said the move was intended to serve its custom- ers that are looking for a better solution to support their localized and latency sensitive requirements for Central and Eastern Europe. In addition, demand specifically in Poland is being driven by increased adoption of hybrid cloud, data regulations and the ability to be the gateway into neighboring countries. In particu- lar, experts predict Warsaw is poised to become one of Europe’s digital heavyweights, and the acquisition of Linxdatacenter Warsaw, a well- established carrier neutral data center located in the heart of Warsaw, enables customers to be part of a highly connected digital ecosystem. The facility offers the flexibility to sup- port deployments ranging from single racks to large custom cages or pods, said Equinix, and has the capability to scale to support fu- ture capacity expansion requirements. Via a diverse fiber path, customers can connect to the neighboring LIM-Building ecosystem. international Agents 48 Channel Vision | January - February, 2019