Cable repair ship assigned to fix TPG Telecom's PPC-1 link

SubCom will soon dispatch a cable repair ship northwards, after an early September earthquake in Papua New Guinea damaged TPG Telecom's PPC-1 submarine cable.

The earthquake struck on the morning of September 11 and claimed seven lives.

Terrestrial telecommunications infrastructure belonging to DataCo was damaged, along with PPC-1.

A spokesperson for TPG Telecom told iTnews repairs “will take multiple days to complete, due to the complexity of the break and the deep ocean depths that the repair teams must deal with.

The spokesperson said the break is unlikely to have a significant effect on customer traffic.

“We have more than enough capacity to cater for all international locations that PPC-1 connects to as part of our mesh international transit network," the spokesperson said.

“This means no international locations within our mesh network are isolated, and there is enough built-in capacity to ensure TPG services can continue."

iTnews understands that a repair team will rendezvous with the repair ship soon, and will be in PNG in late September or early October.

PPC-1 last suffered a break affecting Australian customers in 2016. 

The cable suffered a minor break near Madang in June 2017 affecting Telikom PNG, as reported by the PNG Post-Courier.