AJC - Australia Japan Cable

Network summary (AJC/ATUG):

• 12,700km collapsed ring configuration cable Australia-Guam-Japan.
• Two cable stations per country each with own landing.
• Network Operations Centre in Melbourne with backup in Sydney.
• Design Capacity 32 protected 10Gbit/s wavelengths (320+320G)
• Initially equipped 4 protected 10Gbit/s wavelengths (40+40G).
• ITU-T G.841 Network Protection using MS SPRING (span/ring)
• One Traffic Affecting Fault since Dec 2001 to Sept 2006

ajcable.com :

Australia-Japan Cable is a quality cable system offering connectivity and bandwidth. Operationally excellent since its inception in 2001 it has provided outstanding reliability and resilience enabling for our customers a cost effective and diverse method of supplying services onto their customers.

Australia-Japan Cable is a submarine cable directly connecting Australia and Japan, via Guam. To enable onward connectivity the AJC network provides access to high capacity, high volume, low unit cost trans-Pacific and intra-Asia cables via Guam and Japan. It is currently equipped to 240Gbit/s and has current capability to over 1000Gbit/s enabling further upgrades as required.

The cable system provides diversity which assists traffic survivability in a dual event outage to any one ring system. AJC offers a range of products allowing capacity users to apply to their individual network requirements. These range from Protected SDH, FlexProtect, Direct Wavelength Access and Ethernet Services.

Australia Japan Cable was established in 2000 as a private cable company to design, construct, market and operate a 12,700km submarine fibre optic cable network (AJCN) from Sydney, Australia, to near Tokyo, Japan, via Guam.

The business was funded by a combination of equity capital from the founding shareholders and a project finance debt facility provided by a consortium of a dozen banks (the consortium now consists of 8 banks following several transfers). A significant proportion of the debt was secured by pre-sales.

The construction phase of the project was completed under budget in December 2001, with equipped capacity of 40+40 Gbit/sec of a total design capacity of 320+320 Gbit/sec.

In April 2008 an upgrade was completed on time and on budget, bringing total equipped capacity to 120+120 Gbit/sec and confirming a design capacity increase to a minimum of 1000 Gbit/sec.

Wikipedia.org:

The Australia-Japan Cable, or AJC, is a submarine telecommunications cable system linking Australia and Japan via Guam that became operational in 2001. It had an original design capacity of 640 Gbit/s, but was initially equipped to utilise only 80 Gbit/s of this capacity. In April 2008 a capacity upgrade was completed, bringing equipped capacity to 240 Gbit/s. Design capacity was also increased to 1000 Gbit/s. Further upgrades will increase equipped capacity to meet increasing demand.

The AJC network employs a collapsed loop design that features diverse landings in Australia, Guam and Japan and diverse routing at water depths less than 4000m. This design reduces cost by utilising a common sheath in deep water, where risk of failure is low, but provides redundancy to mitigate risk in shallower waters and in the landing stations.

The network supports a range of access interfaces, including SDH at STM1, STM4, STM16 and STM64 levels, 2.5G clear, Direct Wavelength Access, Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet. A range of protection options are available, including SDH span and ring protection and 1:n wavelength redundancy.

The cable has landing points in:

1. Shima, Japan
2. Maruyama, Japan
3. Tanguisson, Guam
4. Tumon Bay, Guam
5. Oxford Falls, Sydney, Australia
6. Paddington, Sydney, Australia

Source AJC/ATUG 2006

Source Lon/Wikipedia

Source Zam-Isa/TM