Telstra gets core spot in new Asian cable

Telstra has signed on as a foundation customer on a nascent Perth to Singapore submarine cable system which is being built by ASSC-1 Communications Group.

The privately-held Australian cable developer was granted a telecommunications carrier licence by ACMA on 18 October 2010. The project will begin construction in the first quarter of 2012 and is expected to be completed within 2013, based on current project timelines.

As anchor tenant, Telstra will purchase one of the 4 fibre pairs from ASSC-1’s fibre optic submarine cable and will also provide landing party services in Perth.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 6.4 terabits per second, to be delivered through 40 gigabits per second technology, with the capability to be upgraded to 100 GBps in the future.

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

“ASSC-1 will dramatically increase the capacity for internet and data traffic between Australia, particularly the west coast, Asia and Europe, and we expect it to take up excess demand from the only existing cable on this route, which is the ageing SEAMEWE3 system. In addition we expect to provide increased diversity for traffic from Asia to the US via Australia,” said ASSC-1 CEO James Chen.

Huawei Marine Networks, which is currently very active in the trans-Tasman cable market, will supply and install the ASSC-1 system. While Matrix Cable Systems will supply the Jakarta Landing through their own cable landing station and will also work with ASSC-1 to manage the Indonesian permit process.

“The Telstra and Huawei Marine Networks agreements entered into by ASSC-1 underpin the development and significance of this new state of the art, high speed submarine fibre optic cable,” Chen said.

Telstra is also to provide the Australian landing station for the cable via its Wellington Street exchange in Perth. ®