The APNG-2 submarine communications cable is being constructed to link Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

 directly to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and indirectly to New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 and the rest of the world, and has been in service from late 2006.

The new cable is a collaboration between Telikom PNG, Telstra

Telstra

Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....

 (in Australia), and Telecom New Zealand

Telecom New Zealand

Telecom New Zealand is a New Zealand-wide communications service provider , providing fixed line telephone services, a mobile network, an internet service provider , a major ICT provider to NZ businesses , and a wholesale network infrastructure provider to other NZ CSPs...

.

APNG-2 replaces the APNG-1

APNG (cable system)

APNG is a submarine telecommunications cable system in the Coral Sea linking Australia and Papua New Guinea.It has landing points in Cairns, Queensland, Australia and Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea....

 cable, a coaxial copper cable of 16 Mbit/s, retired in early 2006.

Construction

APNG-2 will reuse part of the PacRimWest

PacRimWest (cable system)

PacRimWest was a twin pair 560Mb/s optical submarine telecommunications cable which served as Australia's main link to the world along with its partner cables Tasman2 and Pacrim East ....

 optical fibre

Optical fiber

An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of a pure glass not much wider than a human hair. It functions as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of...

 cable that formerly linked Australia to Guam

Guam

Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...

 and on to Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

Recovery and relaying

An 1,800 km section of the PacRimWest cable will be recovered from just south of Guam, with the ship sailing towards the Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...

.

The ship will then recover a loop of the PacRimWest cable off Rockhampton, Queensland

Rockhampton, Queensland

Rockhampton is a city and local government area in Queensland, Australia. The city lies on the Fitzroy River, approximately from the river mouth, and some north of the state capital, Brisbane....

, break it, splice to the Sydney end the recovered 1,800 km section, and sail towards PNG, making landfall at Ela Beach near Port Moresby

Port Moresby

Port Moresby , or Pot Mosbi in Tok Pisin, is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea . It is located on the shores of the Gulf of Papua, on the southeastern coast of the island of New Guinea, which made it a prime objective for conquest by the Imperial Japanese forces during 1942–43...

, where a terminal station from Guam will be re-established to link to the Telikom PNG network.

Capability

PacRimWest is a fibreoptic cable with two fibre pairs. These will be used to provide APNG-2 with around 1100 Mbit/s data capability, consisting of 2 x 565 Mbit/s PDH systems with , all electronic regeneration.

Cost

The reuse of the cable is expected to save about 80% of the cost of a new cable: USD$11 million v $60 m.

Testing

A 300 km segment of the PacRimWest cable was recovered and tested from a section south of the intended recovery route. It was found to be sound and suitable for reuse.

Cable ship

The cable ship

Cable layer

A cable layer or cable ship is a deep-sea vessel designed and used to lay underwater cables for telecommunications, electricity, and such. Cable ships are distinguished by large cable sheaveshttp://atlantic-cable.com/Cableships/Monarch%284%29/ | History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea...

 being used is CS Ile de Re (named after the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 west coast island, Île de Ré

Île de Ré

Île de Ré is an island off the west coast of France near La Rochelle, on the northern side of the Pertuis d'Antioche strait....

.)