Belau Submarine Cable Corporation (BSCC) will be Ready for Service on December 7 2017. This is a formal project milestone that defines the date from which commercial services are available on the BSCC submarine cable network.
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The project picked up serious momentum in early 2017, when manufacture of system components began. The target RFS date of 7 December was adopted in April. Construction of the network and the Cable Landing Station at Ngeremlengui has been on schedule throughout.
The BSCC network was provisionally accepted from the supplier, NEC, on November 3 2017, when ownership of the network was transferred to BSCC. Since then, BSCC’s customers have been testing their connections and moving into operational mode.
Palau can now see evidence of the switch from satellite to submarine fibre optic, with speeds of 72 Megabits per second (Mbps) downloading on 4G mobile. DSL connections have also started to hum along, with download speeds of up to 2 Mbps and very significant latency reductions. Latency is the time taken for data to travel from the user’s device to a target server and back. Less latency means a better quality connection, less need for caching and improved network efficiency. Before BSCC, satellite enabled DSL connections were recording latency of around 300 milliseconds. Latency has now dropped to 44 milliseconds on a DSL service in Airai.
Palauans can access cloud based applications or stream videos or movies. There will be no more loss of service when it rains. As Palau’s Retail Service Providers adjust their products to utilise the high speed bandwidth now available we can expect to see further service improvements.
BSCC Chairman, George Rechucher, was delighted that the network was completed on time and under budget. “This is a huge step forward for the Republic of Palau,” he said. “We expect to see benefits throughout the economy as a result of improved efficiency from day one, and further progress as Palau’s service providers fine-tune their services and products.“
The milestone will be celebrated at the National Museum on December 7, when His Excellency President Tommy Remengesau Jr will officially declare BSCC is open for business.
Further information on this exciting project is available at https://www.belaucable.com [/restrict]