Globe Telecom of the Philippines has revealed that the USD250 million SEA-US submarine cable system aiming to connect south-east Asia with the US is on track for completion by year-end, adding that its own investment in the project will exceed the original budget of USD80 million. Business World Online quotes Globe’s Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications Yolanda Crisanto as saying: ‘If we include the Davao construction, that adds up the investments. The USD80 million pertains only to the SEA-US system per se.’ The 15,000km SEA-US submarine cable will link Manado (Indonesia) to Los Angeles (US) via Oahu (Hawaii) and Piti (Guam) in Q4 2016, with a fibre-optic cable branch to Davao (Philippines). When completed in the fourth quarter of 2016, the cable will provide an additional 20Tbps capacity, connecting Indonesia and the Philippines to the US with 100Gbps technology. The SEA-US consortium comprises of Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (Telin), Globe Telecom, RAM Telecom International (RTI), Hawaiian Telcom, Teleguam Holdings (GTA), GTI Corporation (a member of the Globe Telecom group of companies) and Telkom USA.
Construction work on the first section of a new submarine cable link between New Zealand and Australia, named Tasman Global Access (TGA), has commenced, with the laying of a 3km fibre-optic cable at Ngarunui Beach in Raglan (New Zealand), newshub.co.nz writes. The 2,300km direct link between Raglan and Narrabeen Beach (Australia) will incorporate three fibre pairs with a current design capacity of 20Tbps; the system is scheduled to be RFS by end-2016. As previously reported by TeleGeography’s Cable Compendium, the TGA consortium – comprising Spark New Zealand (formerly Telecom New Zealand), Telstra and Vodafone – awarded the TGA deployment contract to Paris-based equipment vendor Alcatel-Lucent (now part of Nokia) in January 2015. The new system will provide an alternative path for trans-Tasman traffic – currently routed via Tasman-2 and Southern Cross Cable Network (SCCN) – and is expected to significantly improve New Zealand’s international connectivity options.
African fibre-optic infrastructure provider Liquid Telecom is planning to deploy a new submarine cable called Liquid Sea linking Tanzania to Europe via a ‘less-congested route’, Daily News reports. The proposed infrastructure will run along the East African coast into the Red Sea, with onwards connectivity to Europe, where it will interconnect with existing terrestrial networks and with other international submarine cables. ‘Leveraging Liquid Telecom’s 20,000km fibre-optic terrestrial network, this pan-African private sector project will support fast growing needs for internet connectivity and help Africa’s ICT sector leapfrog towards achieving its Sustainable Development Goals,’ Liquid Telecom’s Group Executive for East Africa and Liquid Sea’s Overseer Sam Nkusi was cited as saying. As previously reported by TeleGeography’s Cable Compendium in December 2015, the 10,000km Liquid Sea cable – with a design capacity of 20Tbps-30Tbps – is already fully funded and will take two years to complete.
AquaComms has successfully completed a proof of concept of Ciena’s WaveLogic Encryption solution, thus demonstrating the ability to safeguard all data at the optical layer on its 5,522km America-Europe Connect (AEConnect) cable system, which stretches from Shirley (New York, US) to Killala on the West Coast of Ireland. This proof of concept follows AquaComms network expansion utilising Ciena’s GeoMesh solution and 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, powered by WaveLogic 3 Extreme coherent optics. The AEConnect cable, which entered commercial operation in January 2016, has a design capacity of 13Tbps (130Gbps x 100Gbps) per fibre pair, and more than 52Tbps of available capacity.
Cable manufacturer Prysmian has installed what it claimed to be ‘highest density optical cable solution in the world’ by laying 1.8km of 2112F cable in Melbourne Central Business District for Australia-based TPG Telecom. Utilising Prysmian’s Flexitube technology, the 2112F cable boasts a capacity of 2,112 fibres within a single sheath, and has a diameter of 24mm.
Lastly, Ooredoo Group’s wholesale division Ooredoo Global Services (OGS) and Telecom Italia’s Sparkle have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for new telecommunication services and knowledge transfer. The agreement will enable OGS to leverage Sparkle’s IP-MPLS backbone and the strategic positioning of Sicily as a hub for telecoms services, particularly for Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
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