Australia to get new Perth Singapore cable

Stuart Corner
Saturday, 21 January 2012 15:06

IT Industry - Development

A private Australian submarine cable developer, ASSC-1 Communications Group, is to build a new four pair submarine cable from Perth to Indonesia via Singapore and has already sold one pair to Telstra.

Telstra has agreed to take one pair from Perth to Singapore and will operate the Perth cable landing station. Matrix Cable Systems will supply the Jakarta landing station and will work with ASSC-1 to manage the Indonesian permit process. Huawei Marine Systems has been contracted to build and lay the cable

The announcement of the cable was made in a joint press release from Telstra International, Huawei Marine Systems, ASSC-1 and Matrix, made no mention of the Singapore landing station.

Matrix Cable System (MCS) describes itself as "a neutral international sub-sea fibre optic cable carrier that'¦is undertaken by Matrix Networks Pte. Ltd in Singapore and PT NAP Info Lintas Nusa in Indonesia" and that serves Singapore - Jakarta with high speed, high capacity and non-stop quality links.

According to the announcement: "ASSC-1 will deliver a four-fibre pair cable system which will span a distance of 4,600 kilometres with an initial design capacity of 6.4Tbps, to be delivered through 40Gbps [per wavelength] technology, with the capability to be upgraded to 100Gbps in the future.

 
"The ASSC-1 system will comprise three express fibre pairs between Perth and Singapore, and one omnibus fibre pair between Perth, Jakarta and Singapore."

Construction is due to begin in the first quarter of 2012 and is expected to be completed in 2013.

ASSC-1 is describe as "a special purpose vehicle with the majority owned by JPC International based in Melbourne, Australia. JPC has facilitated many cross border transactions and work with multi-cultural elements using its team of respected professionals."