Subsea Cables in/across South Pacific

The Pacific Fibre cable is a new 12,750km (7,920 miles) trans-pacific subsea fiber optic cable linking Australia, New Zealand and the US, with cable landing stations in Sydney, Auckland and Los Angeles. The Pacific Fibre cable system consists of two fiber pairs, with 128 wavelengths per fibre pair. By using the latest 40 Gbps per wavelength technology, the Pacific Fibre is expected to have a capacity of up to 5.12 Tbps, and will be further upgradeable to beyond 12 Tbps with future 100 Gbps per wavelength technology.

The Pacific Fibre is the second international submarine cable system landing in New Zealand, with significant improvement to the international network resilience in New Zealand.

The Pacific Fibre is expected to be ready for service in 2014.

Unfortunately, the Pacific Fibre has ceased operation as at 1 August 2012, citing an inability to raise enough investment to fund the cable build.

Optikor Network is a new trans-Tasman submarine cable system connecting Sydney, Australia with South Island and North Island, New Zealandlink, with a cable length of more than 3000 km. The trans-Tasman Optikor Network is designed to provide initially a capacity of 120 Gbps with 1 fiber pair, and eventually 6.4 Tbps with 2 fibre pairs.

Axin Limited initiated the trans-Tasman Optikor Network in September 2011. Axin Limited, founded in 2010, is fully invested by the Sino Telecommunication, and plays major role in the national broad band project of New Zealand.

The trans-Tasman Optikor Network is expected to be ready for service by the end of 2013.

This  trans-Tasman Optikor Network will address the large capacity requirements in the Tasman region and bring competition to the capacity markets in Australia and New Zealand where are now dominated by the Southern Cross Cable Network and the undergoing Pacific Fibre.

Tasman Global Access (TGA) is 2300km submarine cable system connecting New Zealand and Australia.

The TGA consortium comprises Vodafone New Zealand, Spark New Zealand and Telstra.

The TGA cable system lands at: 

• Raglan Cable Landing Station, New Zealand,
• Oxford Falls Cable Landing Station, Australia

The TGA cable system consists of two fiber pairs, with a design capacity of 20Tbps, deploying 100G DWDM technology. 

The TGA cable system was supplied by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), with a total cost of about US$70 million.

The TGA cable system was ready for service in March 2017.

Hawaiki Cable spans 15,000 km, linking Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa, Pacific Island, Hawaii and Oregon, on the U.S. West Coast.

The Hawaiki Cable System has a initial design capacity of 30Tbps on its trans-pacific route offers, offer the following connecctions: 

• Australia to Hawaii, 2 fiber pairs, 20Tbps
• New Zealand to Hawaii, 1 fiber pair, 10 Tbps
• Hawaii to Hillsboro, 3 fiber pairs, 30 Tbps
• Australia to New Zealand, 1 fiber, 12 Tbps
• Branching Unit to America Somoa, 2 fiber pairs, 100-200Gbps
• Branching Unit to New Caledonia (Tomoo Cable), 2 fiber pair, up to 2Tbps per fiber pair.

The main trunk of Hawaiki cable system is 100% owned and constructed by Hawaiki Submarine Cable LP (HSC LP), headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand. The total investment in Hawaiki Cable is approximately US$300 million (NZD 445m).

HSC LP and its affiliates owns and/or controls the cable landing stations ("CLS") in Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Oregon, as follows:

• Australia: CLS in Sydney is colocated at Equinix SY4.
• New Zealand: HSC LP builds and owns a new CLS in  Mangawhai Heads.
• Hawaii: HSC USA builds and owns a new CLS in Kapolei, with DRFortress acting as landing party in Hawaii.
• Oregon: CLS in Pacific City is leased from Tillamook Lightwave, who owns the CLS. ACS Cable Systems, LLC operates the CLS in Oregon pursuant to an agreement with HSC USA. The SLTE of Hawaiki cable system is terminated at Flexential's Brookwood data center in Hillsboro.

American Samoa Telecommunications Authority ("ASTCA"), the government-owned incumbent local exchange carrier in the U.S. Territory of American Samoa, owns, constructs and operates the branch to American Samoa and corresponding landing station.

Research and Educational Advanced Network New Zealand (Reannz), owned by Government of New Zealand, was the first anchor customer of Hawaiki Cable. As of July 2014, Government has entered into the anchor tenancy contract with Hawaiki Cable, valued $65million. The total cost of the tenancy includes an initial contribution of $15 million and annual fees over the 25-year period. The Government has provided the $15 million contribution from an appropriation set aside for purchasing an anchor tenancy on a new transtasman and trans-Pacific submarine cable. Reannz will meet the annual fees out of its existing revenues. 

In October 2016, Amazon AWS purchased capacity in the Hawaiki cable system,  making it AWS' first investment in an international submarine cable system.

The Hawaiki submarine cable system was ready for service on Jul. 20, 2018.

In September 2018, Australia-based Palisade Investment Partners acquired 30% interest in HSC LP and obtained de facto control of HSC LP and the Hawaiki Cable System.

In June 2019, Hawaiki Cable opened new subsea route to the US with direct access to Los Angeles, based on the most easterly segment of the SEA-US cable.

In December 2019, Hawaiki Cable announced to add a branch to New Caledonia, named ‘Tomoo Cable’, with the Société Calédonienne de Connectivité Internationale (SCCI) as the landing party in New Caledonia.

In July 2021, BW Group Limited, through its affiliate company BW Digital Pte. Ltd., acquired 100% shares of HSC LP and the Hawaiki Cable System. The acquisition was subject to applicable regulatory filings and approvals and was completed in May 2022. Local press reports indicate that the sale price of the transaction, from the Palisade-led consortium, to BW Group, was appoximately US$350m.

The Manatua cable system (also known as Manatua One Polynesia Cable) is a 3600km submarine cable connecting Samoa, Niue, Rarotonga and Aitutaki in the Cook Islands and Tahiti and Bora Bora in French Polynesia.

 It is the first fibre connectivity to Niue and the Cook Islands.

The Manatua cable system has six landings: 

• Tahiti and Bora Bora in French Polynesia,
• Rarotonga and Aitutaki in the Cook Islands,
• Apia, Samoa, and
• Niue. 

The Manatua cable system consists of 2-fibre-pair trunk, operating at up to 10 Tbps:

• a two fiber pair trunk connecting Apia and Toahotu (Tahiti)
• a two-fiber pair branch to Avatele,
• a three-fiber pair branch to Rarotonga and
• one-fiber pair branches to both Aitutaki and Vaitape. 

The Manatua Consortium is composed of:

• The Office des Postes et Télécommunications (OPT), the telecoms operator of French Polynesia;
• Avaroa Cables Limited (ACL), the cable operator of Cook Islands,
• Telecom Niue Limited (TNL), the telecoms operator of Niue; and
• Samoa Submarine Cable Company (SSCC), the cable operator of the Independent State of Samoa. 

The Manatua submarine cable system is supplied by SubCom,  ready for service on 22 July 2020.

The Kumul submarine cable network (KSCN) is a 5,457-km domestic internet platform to link fourteen provinces and two national data centres in Port Moresby and Madang, Papua New Guinea (PNG). The KSCN also connects to Jakarta through Indonesia’s national backbone submarine cable network and further connect to Asia to form a new international internet gateway.

Located in the South Pacific, Papua New Guinea is an island nation with numerous mountains and volcanoes, where domestic telecommunications largely relies on satellite and microwave communications. Huawei Marine and PNG DataCo Limited, a Telecommunications Carrier established by the PNG Government, constructs the national submarine cable network to provide the backbone telecommunications needed by major coastal centers and islands in Papua New Guinea

The KSCN project, part-funded by the Chinese government. The PNG government approached China for funding support and the Chinese Exim Bank provided 85% preferential buyers credit to the PNG government to carry out the project.

Gondwana-1 is a 2151km submarine cable network connecting New Caledonia and Australia, ready for service in September 2008.

The Gondwana-1 submarine cable system is owned and operated by the incumbent government-owned carrier in New Caledonia, OPT. 

The Gondwana-1 submarine cable system consists of two parts, the main segment linking New Caledonia to Australia, and a short unrepeated segment from New Caledonia to the Loyalty Islands, with a landing stations at Poindimie (Main island), Mouly (Ouvea) and Xepenehe (Lifou).

The  Gondwana-1 submarine cable lands at the following site:

• Narrabeen beach, Brookvale Cable Landing Station, Sydney, Australia
• Poindimié commune, North Province, New Caledonia
• Mouli Island, Ouvea commune, Loyalty Islands Province, New Caledonia
• Xepenehe, Lifou commune, Loyalty Islands Province, New Caledonia.

The Gondwana-1 submarine cable system is supplied by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN)

The APNG-2 is a 1800km submarine cable linking Papua New Guinea directly to Australia and indirectly to New Zealand and the rest of the world. The APNG-2 cable system was ready for service late 2006.

The APNG-2 cable lands at:

• Ela Beach, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
• Narrabeen, Oxford Falls, Sydney, Australia

The APNG-2 consortium comprises Telikom PNG, Telstra, and Telecom New Zealand.

The APNG-2 cable system was built by recovery and reuse of an 1,800 km section of the PacRimWest cable, which was recovered from just south of Guam, with the ship sailing towards the Solomon Islands.

The ship then recovered a loop of the PacRimWest cable off Rockhampton, Queensland, broke it, and spliced it to the Sydney end of the recovered 1,800 km section, sailed towards PNG, made landfall at Ela Beach near Port Moresby, where a terminal station from Guam was re-established to link to the Telikom PNG network.

PacRimWest is a fibre-optic cable with two fibre pairs. These were used to provide APNG-2 with around 1100 Mbit/s data capability, consisting of 2 x 565 Mbit/s PDH systems with all electronic regeneration.

The cost of the APNG-2 cable system would be about US$60million, it was finally about US$11million. Reuse of the PacRimWest cable saved about 80% of the cost of a new cable.

PacRimWest

PacRimWest was a twin-pair 560Mbit/s optical submarine cable connecting Australia to Guam, for a total length of 7,062km.

PacRimWest was constructed in 1994 and was came into service on 31 January 1995. 

PacRimWest was designed to have an operational life of 25 years, but it was decommissioned from service in 2005.

After decommissioning in 2005, the PacRimWest cable was cut near the Solomon Islands and relaid to form APNG-2 in 2006 connecting Sydney and Papua New Guinea, saving PNG around 80% of the cost of building a new cable and plant with the equipment from the Guam landing station being moved to PNG.

The article by  Alcatel Submarine Networks demonstrated the recovery and reuse of PacRimWest cable for APNG-2. 

The Tonga-Fiji Submarine Cable System (also known as Tonga Cable) is a 827km fiber optic submarine cable system linking Nuku'alofa, Tonga and Suva, Fiji, and connects to the Southern Cross Cable Network at the Suva Cable Landing Station in Fiji.

The Tonga-Fiji Submarine Cable System is owned and operated by the state-owned Tonga Cable Limited (TCL), which was set up in 2011 to develop, and manage the submarine cable with financing support by Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank.

According to ADB report, the total project cost was estimated at $32.8 million, with ADB contributing $9.7 million, the World Bank $16.5 million, and the government $6.6 million. Total investment costs equaled $32.4 million and consisted of civil works ($4.2 million), procurement of the submarine cable system (estimated at $26.2 million), consulting services ($1.2 million), and taxes and duties ($0.8 million). Recurrent costs totaled $0.4 million, consisting of salaries, office space, and equipment operation and maintenance.

TCL signed a single (turnkey) contract valued at $18.8 million to install the international cable between Tonga and Fiji—lower than the estimated contract value of $26.2 million. By project completion, the final contract value had increased to $21.4 million to cover the purchase of additional cable equipment needed for installation. The original works were completed on time and within budget, with a saving of $4.58 million, of which 49.9% ($2.28 million) was ADB’s and 50.1% ($2.29 million) the World Bank’s.

The Tonga-Fiji Submarine Cable System is supplied by ASN, ready for service on 21 August 2013.

Tonga Domestic Cable Extension (TDCE)

With the saving of $4.58 million and additional fund of $7.0million by the Tonga Government, the Tonga Cable was extended domestically from Tonga Isaland to Vava’u (additional 348 km) and Ha’apai (a further 58 km), at a total cost of about $11.0 million. To fund the Tong Domestic Cable Extension (TDCE), the government of Tonga sold 16.7% of TCL shares to Digicel Tonga Limited (Digicel) for $4.2 million. The Tonga Domestic Cable Extension was also supplied by ASN and ready for service in January 2018.

Tonga Communications Corporation (TCC) and Digicel Tonga Limited  are leading operators in Tonga.

TCC is a state-owned enterprise (SOE), provides fixed line, mobile and internet services in Tonga. 

Digicel Tonga Limited is part of Digicel Pacific Limited (DPL), wholly-owned subsidiary of Digicel Group Holdings Limited (DGHL) which operates in 32 markets in the Caribbean, Central America and Pacific. In October 2021, Telstra acquired Digicel Pacific Limited for US$1.85 billion.