By the end of 2013, the Australia Singapore Submarine Cable (ASSC-1) — a new, submerged cable packing four fibre pairs — will connect Perth to Singapore via Jakarta, delivering up to 6.4TB/s of bandwidth between the cities. Telstra’s already on the wagon, securing one of the pairs from the 4600km cable and supplying the gear for our side of the link.
The cable’s not a Telstra initiative, however. According to Delimiter, it will be a “carrier-neutral cable system” designed to handle the country’s growing data needs. The cable will be able to handle 40GB/s per wavelength initially, but there are plans to ramp this up to 100GB/s in the future.
For comparison purposes, the SEA-ME-WE 3, which also connects Perth to Jakarta before hooking up with the Middle East and Western Europe, has two 480GB/s pairs (48 wavelengths at 10GB/s), for a total capacity of 960GB/s. James Chen, CEO of the project, says the ASSC-1 will handle “excess demand” that SEA-ME-WE 3 can’t take on.
Huawei Marine Networks, based in Tianjin, China, will perform the heavy lifting (well, dropping, I suppose). The project’s slated to begin early this year and, barring any unforeseen snafus, should be completed within two years.
Image: ASSC-1.