Optical & Fixed Networks

Residents of Tonga’s outlying islands will have to wait until at least mid-August for internet connectivity to return to normal, as the ship sent to repair the nation’s only domestic subsea cable is itself being repaired after breaking down.

Telecentro, a leading telecommunications operator in Argentina, has selected the cOS broadband platform from Harmonic – a company that delivers virtualised broadband and video delivery solutions – to modernise its broadband network.

Australia has launched a new ‘Cable Connectivity and Resilience Centre’ for Indo-Pacific subsea cable projects on Monday that also serves as the latest initiative by the Quad alliance of Australia, India Japan and the US to limit China’s influence in the Pacific Islands region.

Philippine fibre broadband provider Converge ICT Solutions says it is collaborating with Ribbon Communications to boost the capacity of its fibre backbone to terabit levels using Ribbon’s Apollo optical networking system.

A new high-capacity cable system connecting Greece with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia may be on the way after a recent agreement between the two countries.

Sky Cable Corporation, the pay television and broadband arm of ABS-CBN, a leading media and entertainment company in the Philippines, has announced a partnership with Philippine fibre broadband provider Converge Information and Communications Technology Solutions.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a source of long-term financing for economic, social and institutional development in Latin America and the Caribbean, says it has approved a US$100 million loan to Brazil's federal government to improve digital connectivity and expand fixed broadband coverage in the country.

South African fibre installation company Lightstruck has entered into an agreement with the Namibian City of Windhoek’s City Link initiative to advance the city’s fibre network commercialisation efforts.

Telkom Indonesia’s international arm Telin announced on Monday that it is partnering with BW Digital to build a subsea cable between Singapore and Indonesia to support demand for data centre traffic, just six weeks after revealing a similar project with Singtel.

A Google ship reportedly arrived in French Polynesia on Friday to start survey work on five planned subsea cable projects that will connect various Pacific islands with Chile and Australia.

Inter-island internet services in Tonga have reportedly been disrupted after an earthquake damaged the Tonga Domestic Cable Extension (TDCE),  the island nation’s only domestic subsea cable connection.

The Philippine government’s new project to expand the reach of fibre broadband across the country will result in more lines deployed, but it won’t get more people connected if services are too expensive, says analyst firm BMI Country Risk & Industry Research.

European fibre backbone and subsea infrastructure provider EXA Infrastructure says it has signed a deal with Turkey’s SOCAR Fiber to develop a terrestrial fibre optic route across Turkey that it says will add diversity to the cluster of subsea cables in the Red Sea corridor.

Some very positive connectivity news comes from the Brazil-Colombia border where it is being reported that a fibre optics cable crossing Brazil's Amazonas state is finally ready to connect the Colombian city of Leticia two years after the project to link the two countries via fibre in the shared Amazon border area kicked off.

Guinea’s Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and the Digital Economy (MPTEN) says it has signed an agreement with Mali to interconnect the two countries’ fibre optic networks, partly in response to recent subsea cable outages affecting the continent.

Congolese Fiber Optic Company (SOCOF SA) has reportedly signed a partnership with the Agency for the Coordination and Monitoring of Collaboration Agreements (APCSC) to deploy optical fibre networks along new roads to be built in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

In what is described as a significant move to accelerate the country’s digital transformation, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board of the Philippines has approved a flagship infrastructure project designed to boost broadband connectivity nationwide, particularly in remote areas, and strengthen cybersecurity.

Timor Leste is set to get its first-ever subsea cable connection later this year as work begins to install the Timor Leste South Submarine Cable System (TLSSC) at its landing station in Dili, according to country’s Ministry of Transport and Communication.

Recently, China Broadnet started the large-scale 400G deployment on its national backbone network.

The Pacific island of Tonga is set to get a second subsea cable connection after the governments of Australia and New Zealand agreed to construct a new cable connecting it to the Hawaiki Cable.

A Vietnam News report, published late last week, has suggested that the country’s international fibre optic cable system could see the addition of at least ten new undersea cables by 2030, bringing the number of Vietnam's undersea routes to at least 15.

Plans to build a fibre-optic submarine cable connecting six members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have reportedly been moving forward this month after key meetings in Guinea-Bissau and Guinea.

Peru-based telecoms operator Global Fiber says it has selected Brazilian fibre-optic vendor Padtec and Peruvian telecoms firm Satelital as primary suppliers for a subsea ‘festoon’ network connecting two provincial capital cities in Brazil.

Telecom Fiji says it has formed a strategic alliance with ICT wholesaler and retailer Janty Bondwell to provide fibre connectivity to the company’s operations across Fiji.

Just over a year after series of incidents affected Vietnam’s international communications network, there have been some new issues: three of Vietnam's five undersea internet cables are reported to be down.

Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company (YOFC), in collaboration with China Mobile, recently unveiled the world’s first 800G hollow-core fibre transmission test network in Shenzhen-Dongguan, Guangdong.

Telecom Italia’s international arm Sparkle said on Wednesday it has signed a deal to provide international capacity services to state-owned telco Telecom Namibia via Google’s Equiano subsea cable.

Only days after the news that multinational telecommunications company Digicel Group had announced that its new subsea fibre cable Deep Blue One, serving the Caribbean and the northeast tip of South America, had gone live, Infinera, a supplier of open optical networking solutions and advanced optical semiconductors, has announced that Digicel has deployed Infinera’s GX Series modular platform.

While mobile remains the dominant form of communications across much of sub-Saharan Africa, fibre is continuing to make inroads into many, arguably very tough, markets for fixed communications, including, if recent reports prove correct, South Sudan.

Infrastructure provider Bahrain Network (BNET) announced late last week the launch of a project to transfer all the kingdom's copper internet networks to an ultra-high-speed fibre network.

Digicel Group has announced that its new subsea fibre cable Deep Blue One serving the Caribbean and the northeast tip of South America is now live, which is big news not only for the four countries connected to it, but also potentially for offshore oil and gas rigs along its path.

Telkom Indonesia’s international arm Telin says it has broken ground for a new cable landing station at Pantai Mutiara in Jakarta for the Bifrost Cable System that will run between North America and Southeast Asia.