Tuesday Bytes: Hawaiki, Huawei, T-Mobile

Two bits of subsea cable news and a not-unexpected objection to the big merger of the year:

Hawaiki continued to expand its capabilities now that its submarine cable is operational. This week the company signed a deal with TE Subcom for a backup Network Operations Center. TE Subcom and SubCom Global Services will provide the B-NOC services from its Eatontown NJ headquarters, providing an extra layer of reliability for the transpacific cable system. The cable just went live last month, hooking up Oregon on the US west coast with both Australia and New Zealand.

On another undersea front, Huawei Marine has begun the marine survey for a new project in the Gulf of California. They are helping Megacable build fiber between Topolobampo on the Mexican coast and the resort city of La Paz over in Baha California. As currently envisioned, the system will stretch 250km and consist of 24 fiber pairs. The total capacity of 192Tbps seems like some major overkill for that route, but one has to look ahead. If all goes well, they hope to have the cable ready for service in Q2 2019.

And the T-Mobile/Sprint merger has a fresh opponent this week: the unions. The Communications Workers of America has filed comments with the FCC objecting to the merger in its current form. The bottom line is that the CWA expects the combination would lead to the loss of 28,000 jobs, and want the companies to promise not to do that. Given the synergies the two wireless companies want to achieve, I rather doubt they’re going to give into this one — although they will likely disagree about the actual numbers.

If you haven't already, please take our Reader Survey! Just 3 questions to help us better understand who is reading Telecom Ramblings so we can serve you better!

Categories: Government Regulations · Mergers and Acquisitions · Undersea cables