Pacific Fibre Cable Contract Goes to TE SubCom

Pacific Fibre announced on July 18, 2011 that it has signed with TE SubCom a supply contract for the Pacific Fibre undersea cable system. The Pacific Fibre cable system will stretch 12,750km and boast a significantly higher cross sectional capacity than any other trans-Pacific cable.

Intended to meet the increasing demand for international bandwidth in Australia and New Zealand, which has been growing at a rate of 55 percent per year, the Pacific Fibre system is planned for completion in 2014. The two-cable system will link Australia and New Zealand via a trans-Tasman cable, while connecting New Zealand to the United States via a trans-Pacific cable. The cable landing points will be in Sydney, Australia; Auckland, New Zealand; and Los Angeles, California in the United States.

The Invitation to Tenders for the Pacific Fibre cable project was sent to selected potential vendors on April 6, 2011. And the vendor selection and negotiation was led by Mike Constable, Director of Business Development, who was an employee of Pacnet before joining Pacific Fibre. Before Pacific Fibre went for tendering, Pacnet had abandoned its partnership with Pacific Fibre to build the cable jointly.

TE SubCom will supply the Pacific Fibre Cable System with its leading 40G technology and 100G upgradability. And the Pacific Fibre cable system is scheduled to be launched in the first quarter of 2014.

The Pacific Fibre cable system will be deployed with 2 fibre pairs, each with up to 128 wavelengths of 40 Gbps (128x40Gbps DWDM). Upon completion, the Pacific Fibre cable system will be the highest-capacity-per-fiber- pair system ever built, with an ultimate cable design capacity of 12.8 Tbps when using 100G technology.