Two-part Trans-Pacific route soon to be complete:
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March 29, 2000 20:39
Southern Cross cable sidesteps US landing problem
By Andrew Huddart
WELLINGTON, March 30 (Reuters) - The partners in the Trans-Pacific Southern Cross cable network on Thursday affirmed they expected to have the 29,000 km high-bandwidth network ready for service on November 15, despite a delay in obtaining final landing permits to bring the cable onshore in California.
The infrastructure that will be "ready for service" (RFS) will be almost the entire network, including a full fibre ring around the western Pacific.
But the southern arm of two parallel ocean cables between Hawaii and the mainland United States is likely to still be awaiting connection at that stage, held up by permit delays. Originally the partnership, a joint venture between Telecom NZ (50 percent), Cable & Wireless Optus and MCI World Com , had intended to complete the cable in two distinct halves, but it now plans to finish the entire system in one go.
"Combining what was to have been two RFS dates into a new single RFS date, also means that the Southern Cross will make more capacity available to customers at the earliest possible time," the venture said in a statement.
In November a network that incorporates a full fibre ring linking Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Hawaii, and one direct link from Hawaii to Nedonna Beach, Oregon will be working.
"All nine Southern Cross cable stations will be 'live' and, apart from the Hawaii-US section, full redundancy will be delivered," the company said.
OREGON TRAIL
Southern Cross took an initiative last year to seek authorisation to land in Oregon, having originally intended to make two landings in California -- at San Luis Obispo north of Los Angeles and nearby Monterey Bay, closer to San Francisco.
After hitting permit difficulties, Monterey Bay will no longer happen and the landing in Oregon in mid-April will mark the start of cable-laying between there and Hawaii.
Ross Pfeffer, market director of Asia-Pacific, told Reuters the southern Hawaii-U.S. cable link was already sitting in place off San Luis Obispo "awaiting permits to land", but this might not happen until early 2001.
Chief executive Baldo Sutich described the Oregon tactic, which adds several hundred km to the land-side connection of the full cable ring, as "a significant achievement, given the difficulties Southern Cross and other cable systems have had obtaining permits to land on the U.S. mainland."
Pfeffer said the envisaged completion of everything except the final hook-up off California by November would provide much greater protection from demand pressures on capacity than had been available under the original two-stage plan.
Total capacity sales for the network have already reached $1.2 billion and demand remains strong, Pfeffer said.
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And the earlier contract with Alcatel and Fujitsu:
ALCATEL AND FUJITSU LAND US$800 MILLION CONTRACT FOR A TRANSPACIFIC NETWORK
Paris, 6 October 1998 -- Alcatel and Fujitsu have been awarded the supply contract for the US$800 million transpacific Southern Cross Cable Network, the largest and most direct cable link between Australasia and the United States.
The contract, signed in Wellington, New Zealand, was awarded by the sponsors of the network : Telecom New Zealand, Optus and WorldCom.
Alcatel will be responsible for the major part of the total contract and will be supplying undersea electronics, the cable, and all terminal equipment in the landing stations, including the SDH transmission network equipment and the end-to-end network management system, for the 29,000 km project.
The network will be the longest self-restoring fibre optic network to cross the Pacific and will connect the USA, Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia. The first phase, linking Australia and New Zealand via Hawaii to the United States, will be completed by end 1999 with the second phase linking the US back to Australia via Hawaii and Fiji due for completion in the year 2000.
The dual cable system will use wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) and will give an initial minimum capacity of 40 Gbit/s on each fibre pair. At least three fibre pairs will be equipped making Southern Cross the largest capacity network in commercial operation when it starts carrying traffic.
Christian Reinaudo, president of Alcatel?s submarine networks business said, "We are delighted that, once again, we shall be associated with supplying leading technological solutions to help meet the continuing growing demands for data transmission capacity. The first phase of Southern Cross will be the first implementation of an undersea system that has been designed from the outset to operate over 16 wavelengths and the whole network is scheduled for completion in time for the Sydney Olympics!" |
