RTI Connectivity has said that construction of the Japan-Guam-Australia South Cable System (JGA South) is on schedule and will be commercially available by the end of the year.

JGA South has an initial design capacity of 36 terabits per second (Tbps), enabling carrier-neutral data centres in Sydney to connect to RTI’s combined cable landing station / neutral data centre in Piti, Guam. From Guam, JGA South connects seamlessly to key cities with neutral data centres including Los Angeles, California, USA, Tokyo, Japan, and Hong Kong, SAR, over the Southeast Asia-United States Cable System (SEA-US), JGA North and the Hong Kong Guam Cable System (HK-G), respectively.

JGA South will also connect to the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, making it the first new cable ever to land on the east coast of Australia, outside of Sydney.

The undersea cable and repeaters are being loaded onto the Ile De Brehat installation vessel at Alcatel Submarine Networks’ (ASN’s) factory in Calais, France before it sets sail to the South Pacific to begin installation.

“JGA South will be the fastest path to between Sydney-Hong Kong and Sydney-Tokyo. Also, the cable’s second landing to the Sunshine Coast will deliver much needed diversity not only between Australia-Asia and Australia-United States, but also between Brisbane and Sydney,” RTI chief executive officer, Russ Matulich, said.