Colin Stanners (lists) wrote on 13/07/2020 14:41:
Looking at the Wikipedia article, it claims that Atlantis-2 “can already be upgraded with current technology to 160Gbit/s”. Would be interesting why that wasn’t already done on this 20-year-old cable – assuming that the underground infrastructure (repeaters) are compatible with the newer modulations (or additional wavelengths, but that would have necessitated much more design), the upgrade cost should be small compared to the cable’s value.
160gbit/sec split over a standard 80ch itu dwdm grid sounds like 2gbit/sec per channel (although there are more efficient options than the standard itu grid). This sounds like it's seriously not worth it for today's bandwidth requirements, which might explain why it's only viable for voice traffic.
Nick
