Telstra announced on Thursday it had completed the acquisition of Pacnet Limited, a provider of connectivity, managed services and data centre services to carriers, multinational corporations and governments in the Asia-Pacific region.

The International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC) will be holding its 2015 Plenary over 28-30, April 2015 at Le Méridien Cyberport in Telegraph Bay, Hong Kong. With the central theme, Enhancing Submarine Cable Security and Co-operation in Balance with the Environment, the Plenary will provide a valuable meeting point for all sectors of the submarine cable industry to gather and exchange ideas in a region steeped in submarine cable history and rooted in 21st century technological development

On March 28, 2005, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China jointly issued Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. In the Vision and Actions, it iterates the Cooperation Priority on telecommunications industry that "We should jointly advance the construction of cross-border optical cables and other communications trunk line networks, improve international communications connectivity, and create an Information Silk Road. We should build bilateral cross-border optical cable networks at a quicker pace, plan transcontinental submarine optical cable projects, and improve spatial (satellite) information passageways to expand information exchanges and cooperation."

According to a presentation delivered by the well-known lawyer Mr. Kent Bressie, who is specializing in telecommunications, foreign investment, and national security regulation, the table below lists the processing times for the FCC submarine cable landing license for some typical cables landing in the US.

To facilitate higher performance electronic trading around the world, Telstra launched in Jan 2015 its Global Financial Trading Solutions, a reliable low latency trading network and expert managed services including server infrastructure in financial hubs, managed cloud and global unified communications. 

According to BNamericas, Brazilian authorities are studying a proposal to deploy nearly 8,000km of underwater fiber optic cables in the Amazon basin.

Plans were presented to communications minister Ricardo Berzoini for consideration in late January.

China Telecom Global Limited has been promoting its "Dedicated" and "Direct" Global Financial Solutions, which targets to offer Ultra Low Latency Solutions for trade and finance sectors around the world, especially for High Frequency Trading (HFT) agencies.

According to Reuters news, China Telecom has confirmed it is studying an investment in Mexico, which is rumored to involve tendering for the $10 billion government-led mobile broadband network project.

SBSS has successfully completed the installation and burial of two subsea power cables connecting Margarita Island to Chacopata on the Venezuelan mainland. With SBSS already recognized in the industry as one of Asia’s leading subsea cable solutions provider, this milestone project was their first to be executed in Latin America.

Huawei Marine, a global submarine network provider, today announced the successful completion of sea trials for its second-generation Repeater, RPT 1660 R2, and Branching Unit, BU 1650 R2.

Both innovative second-generation products were recently tested in the extreme winter conditions of the Atlantic Ocean on-board the Cable Innovator, the flagship of parent company Global Marine Systems Ltd. The trials took place off the Portuguese coastline, over a 30-day period in November 2014.

According to Reuters, Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) has planned to pursue an initial public offering of shares for its submarine cable business in the first half of 2015, ending a string of rumors about the future of the division that's been suffering from weakening demand.

The magic power of 2014 seems a double-dealer on the submarine cable industry. It endowed the industry with an investment peak, secured funding for new cables with significant importance around the globe, across the Pacific, connecting Asia, Africa and Europe, linking Brazil to the US, Africa and Europe. On the other hand, it resulted in a disaster which is even worse than the one caused by the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011. Here come the top stories of 2014.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald news, Telstra will acquire Asian-based telecommunications provider Pacnet for US$697 million (AU$857 million). The deal includes Pacnet's data centres throughout the region, including China, the EAC-C2C undersea cable system, the EAC-Pacific undersea cable system (which consists of two dedicated fiber pairs of the Unity undersea cable system). And Pacnet's IP VPN and data centre services in China would be of particular interest to Telstra. The deal is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to be completed by mid-2015.

KVH has announced the offering of 10G and 100G Japan Backhaul Service solutions that connect the Shima Cable Landing Station, the Chikura Cable Landing Station and the Toyohashi Cable Landing Station with central Tokyo and Osaka through KVH’s Ethernet backbone network. All the services are available as of Dec. 2014.

According to Chinese news, China Unicom, the nation’s second largest mobile and fixed network operator, launched on Friday the China-Myanmar International (CMI) terrestrial cable system. The CMI terrestrial cable spans 1500 km from Ruili in the southwest China to Ngwe Saung Beach in the Irrawaddy Delta of Myanmar. A launching ceremony was held at the same time in Nanning, the capital city of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in China, and Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar, with a live HD Video Conference running over the CMI cable system.

Huawei Marine Networks Co. Ltd. (Huawei Marine) announced on Thursday that it has commenced manufacturing the cable for the 1,900km Far East submarine cable system across the Sea of Okhotsk and will also shortly start manufacturing other wet plant for this system. Huawei Marine and Rostelecom signed the turnkey system design and development contract for the Far East submarine cable system in June 2014.