Preparations for the deployment of the Hawaiki submarine cable landing station at Bream Tail, Mangawhai Heads, Northland, in New Zealand have commenced, with the construction of the facility scheduled to begin early next year. Remi Galasso, CEO of Hawaiki, said: ‘We have surveyed the whole coast of Northland and selected Bream Tail in Mangawhai Heads as the best landing site for our cable system. Good local conditions, suitable water depth for the cable ship and easy access to terrestrial fibre networks were the key conditions to pick Bream Tail Farm. The build of the landing station will start early next year to have the station ready by mid-2017.’ The new 14,000km cable will connect Oregon (US) with New Zealand and Sydney (Australia), and will allow for optional connectivity to Pacific islands along the route utilising TE SubCom’s optical add/drop multiplexing (OADM) nodes. Once completed, the cable will deliver more than 30Tbps of capacity via TE SubCom’s C100U+ Submarine Line Terminating Equipment (SLTE). The system is expected to be ready for service (RFS) by mid-2018.
HKT has revealed plans to construct the Ultra Express Link, a super high capacity fibre-optic cable connecting Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate (TKOIE) and Chai Wan. The 3km submarine cable system is scheduled to be ready for service in 2017. Alex Arena, group managing director of HKT, said: ‘The new cable, together with the existing extensive fibre infrastructure provided by HKT, will allow us to meet the rising demand for high speed and high capacity connectivity requirement from data centre operators.’
Tony Makabo, general manager of Solomon Islands National Provident Fund (SINPF), has revealed that the fund had invested ‘less than USD10 million’ in its efforts to connect the island to a submarine cable, after Charles Dausabea, the president of Malaita Ma’asina Forum, questioned SINPF’s decision to plough ‘such a large sum’ into the deployment, the Solomon Star News writes. As reported by TeleGeography’s Cable Compendium in July 2015, the project will be managed by the Solomon Islands Sea Cable Company (SISCC), which was initially co-owned by the SINPF (51%) and Solomon Telekom (Our Telekom, 49%). Under a new arrangement though, the government will be the leading shareholder with 51% of the company; the government agreed to buy out the 49% stake held by Solomon Telekom, in addition to a 2% share from the SINPF, while the latter will retain 49% of the business.
Global Cloud Xchange (GCX), a subsidiary of Reliance Communications (RCOM), has announced the deployment of its Cumulous Network, which will boost connectivity in seven unnamed capital cities across the Indian subcontinent while providing connectivity between the international gateways in Chennai and Mumbai. Based on 100G technology, GCX will be able to deliver significant capacity across the Indian subcontinent route, with the ability to further upgrade in the future. The new network will interconnect with RCOM’s established network of data centres, which are linked via terrestrial fibre networks and GCX’s global submarine infrastructure.
US-based international telecoms carrier UNIFI Communications has acquired 100% of WIS Telecom SpA. and its subsidiary WIS Telecom SA from Libero Acquisition, the investment vehicle of Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Investments (OTMTI). Adrian Shatku, UNIFI’s founder and CEO, said: ‘… UNIFI and WIS have similar core businesses, networks, geographic compliments and customers, and combining the two will expand our footprint, yield operating cost savings and enable provision of higher quality services to the wholesale voice market. Overall, it will greatly accelerate the growth of our business.’ TeleGeography notes that WIS offers international voice, data and IP solutions over an international backbone connecting the US, the UK, Hong Kong, Italy, Greece, Germany, France and Belgium, in addition to owning and operating the 161km Italy-Greece 1 submarine cable.
Finally, Hurricane Electric has established a core network PoP at Fibre Centre, a network-neutral data centre and interconnection facility located in Moncton, New Brunswick (Canada). The PoP is Hurricane Electric’s first in the province, and ninth in the country overall. Fibre Centre was established to provide a strategic access point to the numerous fibre-based submarine and terrestrial networks that pass through the province of New Brunswick.
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