Tuesday 24 September 2019

Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) is deploying a new subsea system for Vocus Group Limited (Vocus) in the Coral Sea that will connect both Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Solomon Islands back to Sydney (the major internet hub of the region), boosting international connectivity and providing high speed telecommunications capacity to those countries.

A Branching Unit (BU) deployed in the Coral Sea will split the cable (4 fiber pairs coming from Sydney) into two cables (2 fiber pairs each), bringing up to 20 Terabits/s bandwidth each for Papua New Guinea and the Solomon

The project also includes the construction of a domestic submarine network within the Solomon Islands, connecting Honiara to the outer provinces.

This is the first SDM (Spatial Division Multiplexing) subsea system deployed by ASN, relying on the new ASN SDM repeater (embedding the pump sharing innovative feature), and ASN SDM cable (with CSF80 optical fiber).

This project is a key element of Australia’s development assistance program to the Pacific, and a major project for the whole region. It has been co-funded by the governments of Australia, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, with Vocus as the prime contractor.

Kevin Russell, Group Managing Director and CEO of Vocus, said: “This is the third submarine cable project that Vocus has undertaken with ASN since 2014. Building this critical infrastructure on behalf of the Australian Government will bring fast, reliable and affordable connectivity to Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands,together with the associated economic and social benefits.”

Philippe Piron, President of Alcatel Submarine Networks, said: “We are proud to have been selected by Vocus Communications to build and install this system. This new contract validates our approach to provide systems with ultimate performance and reliability to our customers, enabling capacity and connectivity enhancements for end-users, as we continue to expand our presence in the Asia-Pacific region.”

The Coral Sea Cable System is expected to go live by the end of 2019.