Vocus to add 8 TBps of domestic capacity

Vocus Communications is upgrading its domestic network infrastructure to support early customer demand for its planned new Australia-Singapore Cable (ASC) subsea cable system.

With the upgrade, Vocus plans to deliver an additional 8 TBps of capacity across Australia, mainly between Perth, Sydney and Melbourne.

The 4600 km ASC cable system will connect Perth with Singapore, via Indonesia. The US$170 million ($212.9 million) cable will have a design capacity of at least 40 Tbps and offer an estimated 30% reduction in latency from Sydney to Singapore compared to existing east coast routes.

The ASC project includes two new points of presence in Singapore and a new point of presence in Christmas Island, marking the island’s first ever terrestrial connection.

“We’re expecting immediate network activity when the ASC is ready for service,” Vocus Head of International Luke Mackinnon said. “So this upgrade is critical to ensuring we keep ahead of demand and continue to provide the most advanced and intelligent network for our customers.”

Meanwhile Hawaiki Submarine Cable, the company building the 15,000 km Hawaiki transpacific cable system linking Australia and New Zealand with the US mainland via Hawaii and several Pacific islands, has announced that more than half of the cable has been deployed.

Activities for the New Zealand leg of the cable system, including the landing of the cable in Mangawhai Heads, is now set to commence later this month.

The cable has already landed in Oregon and Hawaii in the US and in Sydney and is set to land in American Samoa in March. The cable system is expected to be ready for service in June.

Finally, Telstra has revealed plans to invest in two new subsea cable systems connecting Hong Kong with the west coast of the US as it seeks to expand its operations across Asia and meet growing demand for connectivity between China, ASEAN and the US.

The company will partner to build the Hong Kong Americas cable and will own a half fibre pair on the cable, Telstra said without naming the partner or partners.

Telstra will also invest in the equivalent of 6 Tbps of capacity on the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN).

The two systems are expected to offer more direct, lower latency routes than the current Asia-America-Gateway cable, on which Telstra operates the most capacity. The AAG connects Southeast Asia with the US west coast via Hong Kong, Guam and Hawaii.

The HKA cable is expected to be completed in 2020 and PLCN in 2019.

Image courtesy Hawaiki.

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