Huawei Marine to build backbone network for PNG

Huawei Marine has secured a contract to build a national subsea cable backbone network for the Papua New Guinea government.

The company will work with PNG DataCo, an operator established by the Papua New Guinea government, to construct a national backbone network linking major coastal centers and islands in the nation.

The 5,457km cable network will provide domestic connectivity across the nation’s 14 largest cities, as well as international connectivity via a link to Jayapura in Indonesia.

With a design capacity of 8Tbps, the cable will be designed provide more than 70% of Papua New Guinea’s domestic bandwidth requirements. Currently domestic telecoms capacity largely relies on satellite and microwave communications due to the country’s unique geography.

“This new system is very important to Papua New Guinea as it not only includes a new submarine cable network but also provides internet gateways and data centers,” DataCo managing director Paul Komboi said.

“This will improve the whole ICT infrastructure in the country and greatly increase network coverage, capacity and the availability of Internet and broadband services to end users.”

He said Huawei Marine was selected for the project through a competitive tender process.