Pacific Fibre, which is building submarine fiber optic cable network to connect Australia and the United States through New Zealand, has signed an agreement to add REANNZ as its first customer. REANNZ stands for Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand.
By building a submarine fiber optic cable system, Pacific Fibre aims to provide faster, unlimited and cheaper broadband to the telecom carriers. There is a sharp increase in the demand for international bandwidth from Australia. It is estimated that for the time period from 2002 to 2010, Australian demand for bandwidth has increased by around 55% per annum.
Pacific Fibre’s submarine fiber optic cable system will contribute to significantly to meet the bandwidth requirement generated out of the region’s traffic. The estimated project cost of this new undersea fiber optic cable system is US$ 400millions.
REANNZ is a Crown-owned company that operates high-speed broadband networks in New Zealand for education, research and innovation. REANNZ owns and operates KAREN – Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network.
As per the agreement signed between Pacific Fibre and REANNZ, the transmission capacity will increase to 40Gbps from an existing 1Gbps. The transmission capacity will be further enhanced to a 160Gbps in the future.
Pacific Fibre’s submarine fiber cable system will have two cables that span around 12750 kilometers together. The cable that connects Australia to New Zealand is named Trans Tasman cable. The length of Trans Tasman submarine cable is 2150 kilometers. Trans-Pacific Cable is the name of the submarine cable that connects New Zealand to California. The length of the Trans-Pacific cable is 10600 kilometers.
Currently, the planned landing stations are in Sydney, Auckland, and California. Pacific Fibre’s submarine cable will pass near Samoa, Tonga, and American Samoa. Landing stations at all these locations can be established by giving branched cables. This can be done by taking commercial aspects and requirements.
The initial capacity of the submarine fiber optic cable system will be 120Gbps per fiber pair. This initial capacity can be upgraded when there is a demand in the future. Pacific Fibre provides interfaces to SDH, Ethernet and wavelength services compatible with international standards for the optical transport network. Transmission services that will be offered by Pacific Fibre are OTM-1, OTM-2, OTM-3, STM-16, STM-64, STM-256, 40G, 10G etc.
It was in April this year that Pacific Fibre invited a tender for the construction of the cable network. Pacific Fibre estimates that by the third quarter of this year it can sign a construction contract. ANZ Bank, Credit Suisse and First NZ Capital help to raise the funds for the commission of the submarine fiber optic cable system.
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