PacRimWest was a twin-pair 560Mbit/s

optical Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...

submarine telecommunications cable A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables laid beginning in the 1850s carried tel ...

which served as Australia's main link to the world along with its partner cables Tasman2 (connecting Australia to New Zealand) and PacRimEast (connecting New Zealand to Hawaii). PacRimWest was constructed in 1994 and was ready for service in June, and came into service on 31 January 1995 connecting Australia and

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...

. It was withdrawn from service in 2005. The PacRimWest, Tasman2 and PacRimEast cables were designed at the very beginning of the internet era when the vast bulk of traffic was voice, fax and video for the television networks, with very limited requirement for data. The cables fairly quickly reached their capacity of 560Mbit/s on each of the fibre pairs leading to the requirement for the building of

JASURAUS JASURAUS was a 5.332 Gbit/s, 2,800 km optical submarine telecommunications cable that connected Port Hedland, Australia, to Jakarta, Indonesia, with a further interconnection to the APCN and which was decommissioned in 2012. The cable ow ...

(5 Gbit/s) two years later. Around a year after Jasuraus became active, it too approached its capacity with

Telstra Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets voice, mobile, internet access, pay television and other products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 ...

being part of the

consortium A consortium (plural: consortia) is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for ...

building SEA-ME-WE 3 (40Gbit/s). The PacRimWest and Eastern cables were part of the South Pacific Network of Cables. The South Pacific Network linked Australia and New Zealand with Hawaii and

and connected with networks in the United States, Europe, Japan and South East Asia. It meant a great leap in Australia's international links, being able to handle around 80,000 voice circuits (phone calls), a great increase on the 1984 built ANZCAN cable it superseded which could handle only 1,380 voice circuits. The PacRim survey was one of the largest international contracts ever awarded to an individual survey company. It totaled nearly $7 million and was spread over 18 months. PacRimWest at the time was the longest continuous submarine cable laid to that date at 7,062 km (4,414 miles) and one of the most trailblazing cables passing through the

Mariana Trench The Mariana Trench is an oceanic trench located in the western Pacific Ocean, about east of the Mariana Islands; it is the deepest oceanic trench on Earth. It is crescent-shaped and measures about in length and in width. The maximum know ...

near

at a depth of 8,900m (29,000 feet). The cable used only 53 repeaters with spacing at around 135 km (84 miles). Part of the rationale behind the PacRim network was to bring much of the region's telecommunications traffic to Australia, forming a regional telecommunications and technology hub. The largest shareholder was OTC, Australia's international carrier and around 70 percent of the cable was manufactured in Australia. The Network was designed to have an operational life of 25 years, but became obsolete within only three years with the building of Jasuraus, although after decommissioning in 2005 the cable was cut near the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

and relaid to form

APNG-2 The APNG-2 submarine communications cable was constructed to link Papua New Guinea directly to Australia and indirectly to New Zealand and the rest of the world, and has been in service from late 2006. The new cable is a collaboration between ...

in 2006 connecting Sydney and

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

, saving PNG around 80% of the cost of building a new cable and plant with the equipment from the Guam landing station being moved to PNG. The Tasman-2 cable (built in 1992) covered the distance of 2,000 km with three fibre pairs, and joined Sydney and

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

. From there the 7,855 km (4,900 miles) PacRimEast cable (built in 1993) connected New Zealand to Keawaula in Hawaii. The cost of the three cables combined was around AUD$500m.

References

External links

Submarine Cables, Australasia
{{Australia–United States relations Submarine communications cables in the Pacific Ocean Australia–New Zealand relations Australia–United States relations New Zealand–United States relations 1995 establishments in Australia 1995 establishments in Guam

See also

References

External links