U.S. investing $60M in A.N.Z.C.A.N. cable

Press, 30 June 1983, Page 13

U.S. investing $60M in A.N.Z.C.A.N. cable

NZPA Canberra The United States would invest about ?60 million in the A.N.Z.C.A.N. telephone cable which will link Australia and New Zealand with North America, the Communications Minister, Mr Michael Duffy, has said in Canberra. He said at a signing ceremony in Sydney that eight United States international communications companies had become part owners of the ?400 million cable project. Each of these carriers would use the cable to transmit telecommunications traffic between the south-west Pacific and the United States.

The participation by the

United States indicated its importance to long term communications planning for the Pacific. Mr Duffy said that Australia, through the Overseas Telecommunications Commission, had a 50 per cent shareholding in the project until recently. “However, O.T.C.’s original discussion with the government on the cable had always taken into account the eventual participation of United States carriers,” he said. Big international telecommunications projects were normally funded on a userpays basis and Australia would remain the largest shareholder and user with about 42 per cent.

The A.N.Z.C.A.N. cable is one of the biggest single telecommunications projects in the world, stretching 15,000 km from Sydney to Vancouver, passing through Norfolk Island, Fiji, and Hawaii, with a spur line running from Auckland to Norfolk Island.

The cable will carry most types of telecommunications, including telephone, telex, facsimile, and data until past the year 2000. It has a capacity of 1380 telephone circuits, more than 17 times the capacity of the C.O.M.P.A.C. cable which it replaces and which was built more than 20 years ago. The Australian end of the

cable was landed at Bondi in January this year.

Mr Duffy said that other segments of the cable were nearing completion, the project was running within budget and the whole system was planned to be ready for service in late 1984.

The United States carriers join those from 13 other countries which signed the original construction agreement in Vancouver ’in October 1981 — Australia, Fiji, West Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Britain, Canada, France, Ireland, Japan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and Switzerland.