Executive: Submarine cable not related to 5G

Business

PNG DataCo Ltd says the landing of cables for the Kumul Submarine Cable Network (KSCN) in provinces is in no way related to the 5G mobile technology.
Chief executive Paul Komboi said there had been some misunderstanding relating to the exercise being carried out by DataCo.
“PNG DataCo’s fibre optic cable network is at the transport layer,” he said.
“It is like a highway. Service providers or mobile operators are allowed to lease lanes on this highway and transport their own goods along it to their points of distribution or destinations /end user.
“At their points of distribution, they can then redistribute over their own local access road system.
“Some of these local access road systems could be copper cables, fibre cables, microwave cables or even mobile access networks. “The 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G acronyms differentiate the generation of mobile access network which PNG DataCo under its government mandate does not provide and has no plans of providing in the future.”
Komboi said PNG DataCo was a wholesale service provider and is the developer and operator of the National Transmission Network (NTN).
It is based on optical fibre transmission technology.
PNG DataCo also provides satellite technology as its redundant transmission network but today serves as the primary connection in a number of locations while the Kumul Submarine Cable Network (KSCN) is still being built.
Komboi said the KSCN system one rollout is on track to be completed by May 2020,
He said the landing in Jayapura, Vanimo, Wewak, Lorengau and Madang was successful.