Cable&Wireless Worldwide has chosen the 6500 Packet-Optical Platform from Ciena Corp. to power a 100-Gbps link between London and Monaco, Ciena says. The 2,800-km route will be the longest 100-Gbps deployment on the continent, the company asserts.

The link will also connect with Milan, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, and Amsterdam. The 100-Gbps technology is being added to an existing CWW network that currently supports 40-Gbps data rates using Ciena technology as well.

Increasing bandwidth demands drove CWW to the network upgrade, including an anticipated traffic surge from CWW’s role in the Europe India Gateway (EIG) undersea cable system.

“The explosive demand for capacity promises to continue as the number of public and private network connections increases for consumers and businesses and as these connections support bandwidth-intensive applications such as video and remote storage,” says John Paul Hemingway, EMEA vice president of strategic development at Ciena. “A long-term Ciena partner, Cable&Wireless Worldwide is making a highly progressive move in Europe with the region’s longest coherent 100G link, which forms the basis for a resilient, scalable, and flexible backbone network.”