Telstra Corp. Ltd., Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, along with its subsidiary, Telstra New Zealand,

Telstra Corp. Ltd., Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, along with its subsidiary, Telstra New Zealand, is planning a new trans-Tasman fiber-optic submarine cable expected to be ready for service by mid-1999. The proposed new cable, called Tasman 3, would link Sydney, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand, and have a capacity of 40 Gbits/sec. Company officials declare that growth in trans-Tasman telecommunications traffic and the need for redundant capacity should the existing Tasman 2 cable fail have created the need for a new cable by 2000.