Avaroa Cable Ltd (ACL), a wholesale fibre optic operator providing managed wholesale connectivity services to and between the Cook Islands, has confirmed that the Manatua One Polynesia submarine cable system has successfully been brought ashore in Rutaki village, Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands.
The landing, late last week, followed Tropical Cyclone Sarai, which had created immensely difficult sea conditions, requiring deep sea cable laying operations to be temporarily suspended.
The cable will provide international connectivity to Rarotonga and Aitutaki when it goes live in May this year with a capacity of up to 10Tbps (10,000,000Mbps). It will connect Apia in Samoa, Tahiti and Bora Bora in French Polynesia, Niue and, Rarotonga and Aitutaki in the Cook Islands.
Manatua will be the first submarine cable to connect the Cook Islands and also the first in Niue. The last two remaining Manatua landings will be undertaken in Tahiti and Bora Bora in French Polynesia and will be completed this month. The cable was landed on Aitutaki on 14 December 2019.
The cable will now be connected through to the Rarotonga International Cable Landing Station being constructed by Avaroa Cable Ltd at Aroa.
Separately, the cable-laying vessel SubCom Reliance will continue to deploy the Manatua cable, stored in her vast onboard tanks, back to join up with the main cable, around 50km off Rarotonga, and onwards to French Polynesia.
ACL is a state-owned enterprise of the Cooks Islands Government and funded by the New Zealand Aid Programme and the Asian Development Bank.
