Pacific Fibre and TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company (NYSE: TEL), announced the signing of a supply contract for the Pacific Fibre undersea cable system. The system boasts a higher cross sectional capacity than any other trans-Pacific cable and will stretch 12,750km.
The Pacific Fibre system is planned for completion in 2014 due to the increasing demand for international bandwidth, growing at a rate of 55 percent per year, in Australia and New Zealand. The two-cable system will link Australia and New Zealand via a trans-Tasman cable, while connecting New Zealand to the United States via a trans-Pacific cable. The cable landing points will be found in:
- Sydney, Australia
- Auckland, New Zealand
- Los Angeles, CA in the United States
“Demand for international capacity in Australia and New Zealand is sharply increasing and is on track to continue growing for years to come,” said Mark Rushworth, CEO, Pacific Fibre.
Upon completion, the Pacific Fibre system will be the highest-capacity-per-fiber-pair system ever built. The cables will each have two fiber pairs, with an ultimate cable design capacity of 12.8 Tbps.