Equinix, the global interconnection and data centre company, has announced it is working with Sweden-based independent dark fibre infrastructure provider Eastern Light to establish a new international optical cable route in northern Europe.
The new cable system is non-amplified and designed to allow customers to utilise the equipment of their choice over dark fibre. The cable system will connect from Stockholm, Sweden to Hanko, Helsinki and Kotka in Finland, along the route terminating in two Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) data centres: HE6 in Helsinki and SK2 in Stockholm. The Equinix facilities serve as key interconnection points for the Nordics region and support the transmission of global Internet traffic in the region.
By connecting to Equinix data centres, Eastern Light and its dark fibre customers can leverage Equinix's established business ecosystems and interconnection platform, Platform Equinix, which provides access to the markets and ecosystems that support digital business worldwide.Equinix noted that Stockholm-based Eastern Light is currently building a series of new international optical cable routes in northern Europe, with a focus on selling dark fibre to operators and other customers that require control over their own infrastructure.
Eastern Light's main supplier of submarine sea cable systems is NSW (Norddeutsche Seekabelwerke), and the new cable system has been optimised utilising Ciena's GeoMesh solutions as part of its dark fibre offering. The Sweden-Finland portion of the cable is scheduled for completion in the autumn of 2017.
The new Eastern Light cable integrates the cable landing station and interconnection hub within a single solution at Equinix's Helsinki and Stockholm data centres, eliminating the need for a beach cable landing station. This helps to reduce cost and complexity and enhance reliability, and will enable Eastern Light customers to scale bandwidth using advanced networking technologies such as SDN.
- In March, Equinix announced the expanded availability of the Equinix Cloud Exchange, bringing the solution to three new markets, including Dublin, Milan and Stockholm. The solution offers direct, private access to multiple cloud providers for European businesses and enables global enterprises to orchestrate hybrid and multi-cloud solutions across multiple locations.
