By Corinne Reichert, ZDNet
The Basslink Interconnector, the world's second-longest subsea cable providing energy and wholesale high-speed telecommunications services across fibre-optic assets to Tasmania, will be repaired by May after a six-month outage, the company has announced.
Basslink said it found the fault around 98km from the Tasmanian coast after collating over 500 hours' worth of images and data from 20 remote-operated vehicle dives. The company said it has conducted 24-hour fault location identification work on more than 30 days since December.
It is now able to proceed in repairs, the first stage of which involves cutting the cables. Further cable cutting may be required to narrow down the exact location of the fault due to its “complex nature” and “lack of visible damage”, Basslink explained.
After cutting the cables, the ends will be brought onto the repairs ship, tested, and capped to prevent water leakage.
This process is expected to take around two weeks.
“While there remains some more days of work and analysis to be done before we can provide a more accurate estimate of return to service, it is an important milestone,” said Basslink CEO Malcolm Eccles.
