Vocus Group and Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) have signed a contract to deploy the Coral Sea Cable System – a new submarine cable designed to boost international connectivity and provide high speed telecommunications capacity to Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands.
This project is part of Australia’s development assistance program to the Pacific and will connect Port Moresby and Honiara with Sydney via a new fibre optic cable system spanning more than 4,000km. The cable will help to upgrade to both countries’ existing infrastructures.
With an ultimate capacity of at least 20 Tb/s for each of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands to connect to Australia, the cable is scheduled for completion in late 2019, and will relieve the countries’ dependence on ageing cable connections or satellite technologies. The project also includes the construction of a domestic submarine network within Solomon Islands, connecting Honiara to the outer provinces.
Commenting on Vocus Group’s role in deploying the cable, Kevin Russell, managing director and CEO said: ‘This is the third submarine cable project that Vocus Group 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, added: ‘We are proud to support Vocus Group with the Coral Sea Cable project. 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.’
Alcatel Submarine Networks is also constructing the new EllaLink submarine cable to meet the demand for traffic between Europe and Latin America (see Cabo Verde Telecom and EllaLink partner for Cabo Verde subsea fibre connectivity).
