The Fiji Times » Back in history: RFMF help lay cables

2023-03-14 00:57:46 By : Ms. Rita Li

Royal Fiji Military Forces and FINTEL men work on the new cable to haul it into the COMPAC cable terminus building at Rifle Range, Suva. Picture: FILE

Two platoons of Royal Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) gave assistance to Fintel workers during the hauling and laying of cables. According to an article in The Fiji Times on Tuesday, February 1, 1983, the RFMF soldiers evenly spread out a 200-metre trench on the Laucala Bay sea front at the break of dawn on February 2, 1983. Pregalvanized Cable Tray

The Fiji Times » Back in history: RFMF help lay cables

The soldiers, however, were unarmed and the only intruder they were waiting for was a huge cable snaking its way from the ship, Cable Retriever, anchored 200 metres from shore.

Standing in the slush and mud of the trench, the soldiers pulled the then new trans-Pacific cable ashore to link it with the Fiji International Telecommunications Ltd cable terminal site at Vatuwaqa, Suva.

The $US400 million ($F877,220m) cable system, which was known as ANZCAN, provided 1380 voice channels between Australia, Fiji, Hawaii, and Canada. There was also a smaller 480 channel system linking with the main cable at a relay station at Norfolk Island and connecting to New Zealand.

In October 1981, when negotiations were completed to build the new cable system an agreement was signed by 14 potential owners located in the Pacific region and Europe.

Later, four parties to the construction agreement signed contracts on behalf of all participants with Standard Telephones and Cables of United Kingdom and Nippon Electric Co Ltd of Japan to build the cable system.

Fintel was one of the contract co-signatories together with Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. On Monday, the first shore-end cable was laid from deep water near Nukulau Island passing through reef and to the Fintel cable terminal site at Vatuwaqa.

The sea-end of the cable was left on the seabed to await the arrival of the main laying vessel. A second shore-end cable was laid the next day. It was the connection between Fiji and Norfolk Island.

The cable laying started from Norfolk Island and finished in Fiji about the middle of 1983. After reloading with cable in the United Kingdom, the laying vessel returned to Fiji, recovered the second end from the seabed and joined it to the cable in her tanks and commenced laying towards Hawaii.

Cable laying on other sections had already started. The section from Australia to Norfolk Island was partly laid, the cable laying from Canada to Hawaii was in progress and cable ship Mercury was on her way to Japan to load cable for the link to New Zealand.

The overall total length of cable that was to be laid was 8200 nautical miles.

The new cables then had been laid to replace old ones whose life expectancy of 20 years had almost expired.

The old cable carried only 80 telephone channels. With advanced technology, the new cables although of the same size, carried 1380 channels from Australia to Fiji to Canada.

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The Fiji Times » Back in history: RFMF help lay cables

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