According to a source, the AAG cable maintenance unit will reconfigure the source system and repair the optical cable of the segments connecting Vietnam to Hong Kong and America. TeleGeography notes that the 20,000km AAG is one of the main international submarine cable links serving the country; it connects South-east Asia with the US mainland, across the Pacific Ocean via Guam and Hawaii. The Vietnam segment – which is operated by FPT Telecom, Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), Viettel Telecom and Saigon Post and Telecommunications (SPT) – is 314km long and lands at Vung Tau.

The Asia-American Gateway (AAG) submarine cable

Finnish solutions provider Cinia has signed a letter of intent with investors and representatives of the Finnish cities of Hanko and Raasepori to build a landing point for the newly launched C-Lion1 submarine cable, which links Finland and Germany across the Baltic Sea. The 1,172km fibre-optic system has landing stations in Rostock, in the north German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Finland’s capital Helsinki, and consists of eight optical fibre pairs, with a total capacity of 144Tbps. The budget for the new cable branch is approximately EUR10 million (USD11 million), EUR3 million of which will be provided by a group of institutional investors based in the coastal resort of Hanko. According to the preliminary plans, the Hanko cable branch will be ready for acceptance tests in the second half of 2017, with commercial launch planned for early 2018.

UK-based pure fibre provider CityFibre has signed a national Master Services Agreement (MSA) with US network service provider Level 3 Communications. The agreement outlines the standard terms and pricing under which Level 3 can procure fibre from CityFibre’s network in the UK. The first call-off under the agreement has also been signed, covering a dark fibre metro ring on CityFibre’s network in Edinburgh, which Level 3 will connect to local customer sites. CityFibre chief executive Greg Mesch said: ‘We are delighted to be able to announce both the MSA and the first commercial call-off in Edinburgh with Level 3. This marks an innovative solution for CityFibre customers, in providing both a resilient dark fibre metro ring as well as additional connections to customer locations.’

Norwegian fibre-based communications provider Broadnet is planning to deploy a Coriant end-to-end optical transport solution as part of a network modernisation project. The nationwide network initiative will leverage tight integration of Coriant’s metro-to-core optical transport solutions. Broadnet’s fibre infrastructure currently spans over 45,000km and connects more than 90 cities and towns throughout Norway.

Asian dark fibre and Ethernet provider Superloop has raised AUD22.45 million (USD16.6 million) under the first stage of its fully underwritten one-for-seven pro-rata accelerated entitlement offer of shares. According to the company, the funds raised from this entitlement offer will be used to fund investment in the Hong Kong TKO Express domestic submarine cable project, expansion of the Hong Kong fibre network beyond the initial network and expansion of the Singapore network (including but not limited to Project Red Lion). Superloop is planning to deliver the shortest diverse, low-latency route in Hong Kong by deploying TKO Express, which will run across Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour, linking the data centre campuses of Chai Wan and Tseung Kwan O (TKO). Superloop, which already operates dark fibre networks in Singapore and Australia, finalised its Hong Kong network rollout plans in December 2015; its website gives a December 2016 target date for completing a 110km fibre ring backbone system linking 38 data centres and enterprise buildings in Hong Kong. Whilst the full completion of the Hong Kong infrastructure is pending, Superloop’s Ethernet services will go live between certain key data centres in Hong Kong from July 2016.

Telegeography.com