Flag to Deploy Ciena's Waveserver Platform on Echo Subsea Cable for 400GbE and 800GbE Services

Subsea cable operator Flag (Fibre-optic Links Around the Globe) has confirmed it will deploy Ciena's WaveLogic 6 Extreme technology on the Echo subsea cable system, enabling the launch of new 400GbE and 800GbE services between Asia and North America. The move underscores the growing urgency among network operators to expand high-capacity trans-Pacific connectivity as AI, cloud, and enterprise traffic volumes continue to surge across one of the world's most critical digital corridors.

Flag first acquired capacity on Google's Echo cable in December of last year, adding a new trans-Pacific route to its global network. The Echo subsea cable, announced in 2021 and jointly owned by Google and Meta, will span more than 17,000km. EdgeConneX is building a cable landing station for the Californian landing point in Eureka. The deployment equips the Waveserver platform with WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) 1.6 Tb/s coherent optics, alongside an RLS line system, on more than 16,000km (9,941 miles) of dedicated fiber pair within the Echo subsea cable system. According to Ciena, this upgrade will help maximize the performance of one of a limited number of direct cable routes between Singapore and the United States.

"Our investment in Echo enables us to transport rapidly growing volumes of AI, cloud, and enterprise traffic across one of the world's most important digital corridors," said Brad Kneller, chief network officer at Flag. "Using Ciena's leading coherent optical technology, we can rapidly bring new 400GbE and 800GbE services to market while delivering the scale, resiliency, and performance our customers require as AI and cloud traffic continue to accelerate."

"High-capacity subsea routes such as Echo are essential to supporting the surging digital traffic moving between Asia and North America," added Amit Malik, vice president for Asia Pacific, Japan, and India at Ciena. "WL6e enables Flag to extract greater value from its Echo fiber pair by optimizing capacity, improving network density and efficiency, and accelerating the introduction of new services."

The announcement reflects a broader industry trend of subsea cable operators upgrading optical infrastructure to keep pace with escalating bandwidth demands driven by AI workloads and cloud adoption. Beyond the Echo subsea cable, Flag also offers capacity on the FA-1, HAWK, Falcon, MEDEX, FEA, IEX, and FNAL systems. The news comes as Ciena also confirmed that it has provided its WL6e technology for the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) cable system, which connects Western Europe, West Africa, and South Africa, signaling the vendor's expanding footprint in the high-capacity subsea networking segment.