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Coral Sea Cable System installed at PNG, Solomon Islands landing sites

New cable expected to be declared ready for service by December 2019
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare (far right) was presented with a symbolic ‘golden buoy’ to mark the beginning of the Coral Sea Cable being laid between Honiara and Sydney.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare (far right) was presented with a symbolic ‘golden buoy’ to mark the beginning of the Coral Sea Cable being laid between Honiara and Sydney.

A new subsea cable system that will offer a significant connectivity boost to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea has been installed at landing sites in the two nations’ capitals.

The 4700km, four fibre-pair system will connect Honiara, Port Moresby and Sydney, delivering at least 20 terabits per second capacity to PNG and the Solomon Islands, with a total capacity of 40Tbps for the cable system.

The federal government in mid-2018 announced it had awarded Vocus a $136.6 million contract to build the Coral Sea Cable System. The Australian government committed to paying most of the cost as part of an effort to block Chinese company Huawei from laying a new cable connecting the Pacific nations, reportedly due to national security concerns.

Canberra has previously moved to bar Huawei from participating in the roll out of 5G in Australia as well as stopping it from having any role in the National Broadband Network.

Vocus is also laying a 730-kilometre submarine cable system to connect the Solomon Islands’ capital to Auki (Malaita Island), Noro (New Georgia Island) and Taro Island.

Alcatel Submarine Networks has been tasked with installing the Coral Sea Cable System.

“This is a large scale and complex submarine cable build and our team, together with our partners, are doing a great job,” said Vocus chief executive, enterprise and government, Andrew Wildblood. “It’s exciting to reach more key milestones and for this cable system to be taking shape.”

The cable system is expected to be ready for service by December.

Vocus last year declared its new Australia Singapore Cable ready for service.