By Cyber Era NG Special Correspondent

PNG DataCo Limited (DataCo) has issued an advisory that the planned outage on the Coral Sea Cable System (CS2) between Port Moresby and Sydney has now been rescheduled to 22nd to 29th May 2022. This is due to the delay in the arrival of the Repair Ship.  This is contained in a PNG DataCo Limited communication, penned by its Management, to which Cyber Era NG is privy.

It reads: “DataCo Management has considered this outage as a critical precautionary measure to mitigate serious issues going into the future and the life of this asset. Since  commissioning of the CS2 Cable, a shunt fault was detected in early 221 posing a risk on the ongoing smooth operation of the cable system.

During the outage window from 22nd to 29th May, all international bound traffic for internet and private leased circuits on CS2 will be routed on alternate paths via PPC-1 Submarine cable from Madang to Sydent and Madang to Guam. This whole exercise will result in degradation of services because the alternate paths will not have enough bandwidth capacity to cater for the demands of the present traffic profile on CS2 and will also result in increased latency during the outage window.

All Service Providers are hereby notified to consider alternate redundancies to back up their services during the outage period.

DataCo sincerely apologise for any inconveniences this outage may cause to businesses. We will provide further advice and updates on the progress of this exercise until services are normalized.

Please do not hesitate to contact DataCo NOC on noc@pngdataco.com and phL +675 313 3900 or your Account Manager for any further clarification.”