Undersea cable to boost Tasman trade?

Press, 2 June 1982, Page 16

Undersea cable to boost Tasman trade?

NZPA Canberra Considerable Australian involvement in the new Anzcan undersea communications cable would boost the telecommunications industry and produce advanced skills, says Communications Minister, Mr Neil Brown. The Anzcan cable would give Australian industry the chance to develop expertise in areas of technological and strategic significance, he said. Mr Brown said it was important that staff working on the project would be able to study high, technology devlopment overseas. These skills could eventually be applied to projects including advanced satellite, defence or general telecommunications equipment. Mr Brown was speaking at the opening of a factory for Standard Telephones and Cables (S.T.C.) at Liverpool near Sydney. S.T.C. (United Kingdom) has won a $3OO million contract to supply and install the cable between Sydney and Vancouver, Canada.

The Nippon Electric Company of Japan has won a's3o million contract for laying the cable for a spur line

between Norfolk Island and Auckland, New Zealand. The cable will run from Sydney .. through'’/..Norfolk Island, Fiji; and Hawaii to Vancouver arid is due to be completed in late 1984. Australia will fund, about half the capital cost of the $4OO million project. Mr Brown said it was designed to carry most types of telecommunications traffic including telephone, telex, facsimile, and data services. He said it would be able to handle 1300 simultaneous telephone calls, 16 times as many as the cable' it will replace. , Mr Brown said the contract with S.T.C. involved $7B million of Australian industry participation and, offsets. S.T.C. (Australia) had won a $4l million high technology sub-contract to supply submarine repeaters, a $25 million deal for offset contracts and. a $l2 -million contract for cable materials. ; Mr Brown said more than 1000 submarine repeaters would be needed for ) the cable project; 450 of :which would be built at the Liverpool factory. ’ . .- . The $lO .million ' factory would provide 150 jobs,.. ,and. work for 150 sub-contractbrs.