Cable manufacturer Prysmian Group has supplied what it says is the densest and highest fiber count subsea cable ever made.
The company has delivered a FlexTube cable containing 1,728 optical fibers for Australia’s Superloop for the TKO Express project.
TKO Express is a project to provide broadband connectivity between the aras of SiuSai Wan on Hong Kong Island and the Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate data center hub on the mainland.
The company’s and industry’s previous record was a subsea FlexTube cable with just 720 fibers from 2014.
Prysmian Australia CEO Frererick Persson said the construction was a major logistics and engineering challenge.
The base cable was manufactured in France, then airlifted in Australia to apply moisture barriers and aluminum tape as well as double armoring layers of wrapped steel wires to ensure the cable could withstand being buried up to five meters into Hong Kong’s sea bed.
“It was a logistics challenge indeed. Airfreighting a drum weighing 15 tons was something that we have never done before. But we mastered it and the drum was successfully delivered to the TKO Port three days before the promised date. It has been definitely great success for both companies,” he said.