Auckland-based Hawaiki Submarine Cable has signed a long-term collaboration agreement with SIL Long Term Holdings for the development and implementation of the proposed Hawaiki Submarine Cable System, which will link Australia, New Zealand and the US with a number of South Pacific Islands and Hawaii. Under the agreement, SIL Long Term Holdings, the investment vehicle of Eion Edgar, will become an equity partner for the USD300 million Hawaiki submarine cable system. The fibre-optic infrastucture, which is scheduled to be ready for service (RFS) by Q3 2017, will have design capacity of more than 25Tbps. Meanwhile, stuff.co.nz writes that David Wilson, chief executive officer of New Zealand-based regional economic development agency Northland, has confirmed that in New Zealand the Hawaiki Cable would land at a site near Bream Bay, located between Whangarei and Mangawhai Heads.
Australian infrastructure company Superloop Limited has confirmed that it has constructed 92km of the 110km fibre-optic network linking the Global Switch and Equinix SG1 data centres in Singapore, with the remainder of the fibre cabling to be deployed by the end of Q2 2015. When completed, customers will be able to connect to Global Switch, Equinix SG1, SG2, SG3 and Digital Realty (Jurong) data centres, in addition to the Katong and Tuas cable landing stations on a fully geographical diverse network. Superloop’s dark fibre network between Global Switch Singapore and Equinix SG1 is the first stage of a carrier-neutral fibre-optic network designed to meet the needs for high-speed data services and cloud computing services in the fast-growing Asia-Pacific (APAC) market. Further, Superloop disclosed that the Brisbane and Melbourne core networks are now serving customers, while the primary fibre path in Sydney is also active, with only the redundant path yet to be constructed (scheduled for completion in Q2 2015).
Pacific Telecom, the parent company of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands’ (CNMI’s) main telecoms provider IT&E, has reported a fault in the Mariana-Guam Cable, the sole submarine network linking CNMI with Guam, the Pacific Daily News reports. IT&E said that it had not identified the exact cause of the cable cut, but ‘indications are that this failure is a result of the recent passing of Typhoon Chan-Hom through the Mariana Islands’. James Oehlerking, chief executive officer of Pacific Telecom, said: ‘All of the communications off of Saipan are affected. Not just our cellular customers – all communications … It’s not just our subscriber base because other operators utilise the same cable to provide connectivity back to Guam, so it is a very broad, sweeping impact on the CNMI.’ The USD14 million fibre-optic cable, which stretches 240km between Guam, Rota, Tinian and Saipan, replaced an overloaded inter-island microwave system in 1997. While IT&E is attempting to fix the undersea cable, it has partially restored service by reviving the old microwave link.
F6 Networks, a New Brunswick provider of dark fibre and network services, has announced the completion of its 500km northern New Brunswick route connecting the communities of Doaktown, Miramichi, Shippagan, Bathurst, Dalhousie and Campbellton to the company’s international telecoms backbone. TeleGeography notes that F6 Networks owns and operates an open access, high capacity fibre-optic network linking New Brunswick to the northeast US, Nova Scotia and Quebec (Canada).
Alcatel-Lucent has completed the transfer of its optical transport manufacturing plant and related assets in Trieste (Italy) to Flextronics for an undisclosed sum. The Trieste plant is a facility specialising in the industrialisation and manufacture of optical transport products for Alcatel-Lucent’s global supply chain; the sale to Flextronics will enable it to expand into new markets and diversify its customer base, while retaining and building critical skills and expertise in the field of optical communications. Alcatel-Lucent and Flextronics also signed a five-year, renewable contract for the supply of optical transport products.
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