The Southern Cross Cable Network (SCCN) forms a protected ring network among 9 cable landing stations (two in each of Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and the US mainland, and one in Fiji) and an access point in San Jose, California.

The Southern Cross Cable Network contains 3 fiber pairs between Sydney and Hawaii, 4 fiber pairs between Hawaii and the US West Coast, and 3 fiber pairs on the Hawaii Inter-Island cable, with almost 30,500 km in length, including 28,900km of submarine cable and 1,600km of terrestrial cable.

The Ready for Service (RFS) for Phase A of the Southern Cross network - comprising all nine stations and all segments except Segment D (from Hawaii to California) - was achieved on 15 November 2000. Completion of the fully protected loop network (RFS Phase B) was achieved on 28 February 2001.

The Southern Cross Cable Network is invested, owned and operated by Southern Cross Cables Limited (SCCL,a Bermuda private limited company) and its sister company Pacific Carriage Limited Inc. (PCLI) which were owned indrectly by Spark NZ (50%), Singtel EInvestments (40%) and Verizon Business (10%). In 2018, Telstra acquired 25% stake in SCCN and substantial capacity on both the existing network and the new Southern Cross NEXT subsea cable. As a result, SCCL is owned by Spark NZ (38.12%), Singtel EInvestments (30.49%), Telstra (25%) and Verizon Business (6.4%). Visit here for the ownership chart of SCCL and PCLI.

The Southern Cross Cable Network was originally designed to working with 10 Gbps DWDM and deliver 120Gbps of fully protected capacity (240Gbps across the network). 

On July 30, 2013, Southern Cross announced the completion of upgrade with Ciena's 100G technology, increasing its lit capacity to 2.6Tbps and system capacity to 12Tbps.

By the end of 2023, the Southern Cross Cable Network had been capable of delivering system capacity of 18 Tbps, with an active capacity of 13.4 Tbps.

In Novomber 2023, PCLI and SCCL filed an application for a new 25-year cable landing license for the Southern Cross Cable Network, and renamed the system Southern Cross 1&2 system. Southern Cross1 refers to the northern traffic path on the system between Nedonna Beach, Oregon; Kahe Point, Hawaii; Suva, Fiji; and Sydney,Australia. Southern Cross 2 refers to the southern traffic path on the system between Morro Bay, California; Spencer Beach, Hawaii; Tapakuna, New Zealand; and Sydney, Australia.