Australia’s OTC Ltd, formerly the Overseas Telecommunications Commission, has signed contracts with 35 other carriers to lay the world’s longest undersea fibre optic cable system linking Guam to Hawaii via Sydney and Auckland to create the South Pacific Network and complete the loop by linking to the North Pacific Network: OTC will be the largest shareholder, and others include Telecom Corp of New Zealand, AT&T Co and Kokusai Denshin Denwa Co; Alcatel NV’s Tasman Cable Co gets the lion’s share of the $622m contracts for the cable with a $390m order; AT&T gets the balance.
