Summary

  • Spark Wholesale's September 8 announcement offers Auckland data-centre links at 10G, 100G and 400G, with 800G described as coming in the near future.
  • Its DCI product has fixed paths and no optical restoration. Spark distinguishes it from the restoration-enabled DTS offer; neither dedication nor speed settles an application's continuity design.

The missing specification is not another speed

A procurement team can specify the bandwidth between two data centres and still leave an important question unanswered: what changes when the selected path becomes unavailable? Spark Wholesale's Auckland Data Centre Interconnect service brings that distinction into a single product comparison. This is a choice about the service being bought, not evidence of a fault in the new network.

Ciena's September 8 announcement says DCI is available at 10G, 100G and 400G, with up to 800G connectivity in the near future. Initial coverage runs from Silverdale in the north to Papakura in the south. The underlying WaveLogic 6 Extreme optics, running on Waveserver, support up to 1.6Tb/s per wavelength. That optical capacity is not a 1.6Tb/s customer service tier. Launch announcement

The service is intended to move data privately over dedicated, uncontended connections. Spark's product page describes a lit Layer 1, point-to-point connection between data centres. It lists 10, 100, 400 and 800Gbps variants, but the dated announcement is more specific about the 800G timetable. A buyer should confirm availability at the chosen endpoints rather than treating the whole catalogue as immediately deliverable.

A deliberate boundary in the offer

The consequential distinction appears in Spark's own DCI-versus-DTS table. DCI has fixed paths, metropolitan availability and no optical restoration. Multiple fixed paths are available where offered. DTS, the Data Transport Service, is the nationwide alternative with custom paths where feasible and optical restoration on available paths. Both are lit Layer 1 services. DCI product and comparison

A fixed path and a restoring service do different work. The former supplies a defined connection. Optical restoration adds a network response to an unexpected event. Spark's DTS page describes automatically changing the network data path when such an event is detected. It also discusses nationwide coverage and diversity options, including across the Cook Strait. Those are descriptions of DTS, not features that should be silently transferred to DCI because both use Spark's optical network. DTS service description

Nor does the absence of optical restoration prove the absence of all resilience. A customer might use more than one fixed connection and arrange failover elsewhere in its network or applications. That is a design possibility, not a disclosed DCI customer deployment. Where multiple paths are offered, their physical independence and the customer's switching behaviour still need to be established. Two ordered links alone do not demonstrate that a shared failure can be avoided.

The announcement also names Ciena's Navigator Network Control Suite for network visibility, capacity planning, fulfilment and troubleshooting. Such management capabilities do not erase the product boundary in Spark's comparison. Automated planning is not, by itself, a promise of automatic restoration for every purchased service.

Spark and Ciena have worked together since 2019, according to the DTS page. The new milestone is a specific metropolitan interconnect offer, not a first partnership. The reviewed pages provide no numerical price comparison, demonstrated saving or recovery-time commitment with which to declare one continuity design cheaper than another.