| Alcatel, France, and Telstra, the leading telecom service provider in Australia, have recently announced the signature of a multi-million dollar contract to build a second Bass Strait crossing ensuring enhanced services to Tasmania. The new Bass Strait 2 link will enable Telstra to meet Tasmania's growing demand for advanced telecommunications services while enhancing the overall capacity and service reliability of the current infrastructure. When completed, Bass Strait 2 will take over from the digital radio links as the primary back-up technology for the first Bass Strait cable, which was also deployed by Alcatel in 1995.
Under the terms of the agreement, Alcatel will install an optical fibre cable to connect Tasmania and Victoria, spanning approximately 250km. The project is scheduled to be completed in July 2003. Designed for unrepeatered operation, the solution supplied by Alcatel features deep burial of a high-fibre count cable. The advanced burial process will ensure enhanced protection against cable damage and associated traffic interruptions.
Telstra's first Bass Strait optic fibre cable has been operating since 1995. Working at 2.5Gbit/s, this 242km submarine cable links Sandy Point (Victoria) and Boat Harbour (Tasmania), providing a highly reliable transmission link between Tasmania and the mainland. Recently, Alcatel has also announced the deployment of 2.5Gbit/s 16-channel dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) systems for Telstra. One of them links Adelaide to Darwin over 3,100km, which increases the operator's backbone capacity to meet Australia's expanded voice, data and Internet traffic demand and extends the nation-wide backbone coverage to over 10,000km. In addition, this technology spans the Victoria-Tasmania route, which was commissioned during 2002.
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