Vocus confirmed that its Australia Singapore Cable (ASC) has been put into early service following a major service disruption on the SEA-ME-WE 3 (SMW-3) submarine cable between Perth and Singapore.
In order to minimize customer impacts due to the SMW-3 outage, Vocus has implemented an emergency cutover of services that were running through SMW-3 onto the Vocus ASC, which is in its final testing phase.
Simon Smith , Vocus chief technology officer, said: “After consulting our team conducting final testing, we are confident that ASC is ready to provide reliable and effective services to mitigate the effect of the SMW-3 outage.
“Even though we had announced Vocus ASC ready-for-service on September 14, our priority is ensuring our customers continue to access the connectivity they require. The SMW-3 outage has forced our hand, but our testing on ASC is ahead of schedule and we are confident enough to press ASC into early service.”
Vocus engineers will continue to complete their work to fully operationalize ASC prior to the official RFS date, September 14, 2018. They will also continue to monitor the re-routed traffic from SMW-3, the company noted.
Vocus anticipate no impact for customers that are already committed and contracted to go-live on September 14.
Simon added: “SMW-3 has unfortunately suffered many unexpected service interruptions in the past few years and Vocus ASC will be a welcome addition, being a newer and more technologically advanced cable, and able to offer a more reliable service than SMW-3. It is highly fortunate that our ASC project has been so advanced to be able to swing into action, in an emergency capacity.”
SMW-3, which is owned by a consortia of members, of which Vocus is a party, are working to provide an ETA on when services will be restored.