Cable Systems and Cable Landing Stations are on their way
Solomon Submarine Cable are delighted to update the Solomon Islands public of the following major developments in our eagerly waited and Nation Building programme.
The first of these is that the completed undersea cable systems, The Coral Sea Cable System (CS2) and the Solomon Islands Domestic Network (SIDN), are currently being loaded onto the Alcatel Cable Ship “Isle de Brehat” in Calais, France. The ship is scheduled to leave around 20th April and make its way to the Pacific.
The ship will first head to Port Moresby and lay the PNG branch of the CS2 cable from June 6th, heading to Honiara by 20th June to commence the Solomon Islands branch. It will lay the Solomon Island cable branch back to meet the PNG branch, install the branching unit, then lay the combined CS2 cable down to Sydney for the land termination. The last splice on CS2 should be completed on 10th August.
The ship will then return to Honiara to commence the laying of SIDN starting from Honiara at the end of August. Auki will be connected to Honiara first, then the ship will lay the main body of the cable system to Western Province, complete the branch to Taro, then finally the branch to Noro to complete the system by early October.
The second important milestone is the shipping of the Solomon Submarine Cable’s prefabricated Cable Landing Stations and office building from X-Site Modular in the USA. These specialist data centre buildings will arrive into Honiara during May. They will be installed at their compounds in Honiara by 31st May (Lengakiki Ridge), in Noro by mid June and in Auki and Taro by early July.
The Commonwealth’s contractor, Vocus Communications, and their sub-contractor, Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), will then install all the required electronics in the landing stations and run the land cables from the beach landing points to the landing stations through Solomon Submarine Cable’s land ducts to complete the system.
The project is clearly on track to complete all system testing and for the Commonwealth of Australia to hand over the operational cables to the operating companies before the end of 2019. SISCC expect to complete testing of their own infrastructure and open the services for commercial within the same timeframe so will open for business before the end of 2019.
Any further inquiries should be addressed to Keir Preedy, CEO of Solomon Submarine Cable at the address below.
SISCC Ltd, PO Box 26, Mendana Ave, Honiara.
Solomon Submarine Cable is a registered business name of Solomon Island Submarine Cable Company Limited (SISCC)
The Coral Sea Cable Project, encompassing both the international and domestic cable systems, is majority grant funded by The Commonwealth of Australia.
