TENET Leverages XKL's Optical Transponders and Amplifiers to Enhance London to Cape Town Subsea Network

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May 01, 2018, 08:00 ET

REDMOND, Wash., May 1, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- XKL LLC, a leading provider of fiber optic networking systems, is proud to announce that TENET, a research and education network based in South Africa, purchased XKL DarkStar transponder and mux/demux systems, providing a protected connection between two of their strategic data center locations in London. The interconnection is a critical component of a subsea cable network linking London to Cape Town. The transponder systems grow to 36x10G in a 1RU package; establish the connection between multi-tenant data centers, which connect to subsea fiber managed by the West African Cable System (WACS). The inclusion of an amplified mux/demux with optical switch protection, was driven by TENET's desire to easily scale its transport capacity as demand increases as well as provide optical path protection between locations in the event of a fiber break.

TENET operates multiple peering and transit links across Europe and Africa, as well as UbuntuNet gateways under contract to the UbuntuNet Alliance. The provider also offers direct connections to GÉANT, the European research and education network. With several initiatives driving network utilization, the company intends on increasing its capacity over time and sought a network solution that intelligently accommodates growth. XKL's mux/demux offering allows TENET to simply add new optical transport systems as needed without service disruption. This pay-as-you-grow approach is facilitated through the unified design of XKL's suite of products. Network architects have gravitated toward that flexibility when planning their networks.

"TENET was looking for a comprehensive data center interconnect solution that facilitates success-based expansion," comments Dr. Chad Lamb, Chief Systems Architect for XKL. "Linking strategic data center locations is an increasing trend and XKL has a portfolio of products to support this use case. It's hard to predict the growth level of traffic that will be needed between sites. The XKL solution provides future expansion capability without the costs typically seen with optical transport solutions."

"We are impressed with the operational simplicity of the DarkStar equipment," says Len Lotz, Executive Officer – Technology and Operations for TENET. "After experimenting with XKL's online demonstration systems, provisioning and bringing up service was quite easy. This was the first of several projects and we've been impressed with XKL's products and engagement."

For more information on XKL's optical networking product portfolio, please visit www.xkl.com.

XKL is attending International Telecoms Week (ITW) in Chicago, from May 6-9. To request a meeting onsite, please email [email protected].

About XKL
Privately owned and operated by Cisco Systems co-founder Len Bosack, XKL provides high capacity DWDM optical networking products for robust enterprise deployment, service providers, and seamless cloud migration. The company is headquartered in Redmond, Washington. For more information on XKL and its product line, please visit www.xkl.com. For the latest company updates, be sure to follow XKL on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About TENET
TENET's main purpose is to secure, for the benefit of South African universities and associated research and support institutions, Internet and Information Technology services. TENET is a service organisation and is committed to service excellence and to services that are strongly aligned and consistent with the organisational requirements of the user community. TENET operates the SANReN Network under the terms of a Collaboration Agreement with the CSIR.

SOURCE XKL, LLC