OPT New Caledonia Awards contracts to ASN and Intelia
By Telecompaper
April 23, 2020
By TelecompaperOPT New Caledonia (OPT-NC) has selected ASN (Alcatel Submarine Network) for the construction and installation of the Gondwana-2 subsea cable linking New Caledonia to Fiji. The operator launched the tender process for the new international cable a year ago, to provide additional network capacity and resilience alongside the existing Gondwana-1 cable system, which connects New Caledonia to Australia. The five-year contract with ASN is worth XPF 4.47 billion (circa EUR 37.5 million) and the work is due for completion in early 2022.
OPT-NC has also announced that it has renewed its collaboration with local system integrator Intelia, the exclusive representative of Ericsson in New Caledonia. The new three-year agreement covers a number of network development projects, including the construction of 90 new 3G/LTE cell sites, the installation of additional capacity, and the termination of 2G services by 2023. The value of the contract is XPF 1.61 billion (EUR 13.5 million), and follows around 20 similar deals awarded to Intelia and its partner Ericsson between 2010 and 2020, worth a combined XPF 14 billion (EUR 117.5 million).
To date, OPT-NC has deployed 403 cell sites, with LTE and LTE+ sites totalling 295 and 45 respectively.
