The Solomon Islands is set to get a second international subsea cable connection via a project funded by the Australian government to build a subsea cable that will interconnect with Google’s planned Bulikula system.
According to a statement from the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific (AIFFP) last week, Solomon Islands Submarine Cable Company (SISCC) and the governments of Solomon Islands and Australia have agreed to construct the 1,015-km Adamasia Cable System 1 connecting the islands with the Bulikula subsea system.
AIFFP will fund the project with a financing package of AUD104 million (US$72.71 million), which includes a grant of AUD71.9 million and a loan of AUD31.9 million.
AIFFP said the financing package also includes an AUD1.8 million contribution from its Pacific Climate Infrastructure Financing Partnership to support an off-grid electricity generation and storage capability.
The Bulikula cable system – which Google first announced in January 2024 and counts Telstra as a co-investor, along with Amalgamated Telecom Holdings (ATH) and APTelecom – aims to build a fibre ring connecting Fiji, Guam, French Polynesia and the Northern Mariana Islands. The Adamasia cable will interconnect with the Bulikula link between Fiji and Guam.
AIFFP said the Adamasia project will enhance disaster resilience for the islands during severe weather events and provide critical redundancy for its existing international submarine cable network.
Currently, the Solomon Islands is served by just one subsea cable – the Coral Sea Cable System (CS²) that connects the island nation with Papua New Guinea and Sydney, Australia.
No timeline was given for the completion of the Adamasia cable. However, the Bulikula system is currently scheduled to be ready for service sometime next year.
Meanwhile, potentially on the horizon for the Solomon Islands is the Hawaiki Nui 1 subsea system being built by BW Digital and Telkom Indonesia’s international arm Telin. With a design capacity of more than 240 Tbps, Hawaiki Nui 1 will link Australia, Indonesia and Singapore, and includes optional branches to the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste. That system is scheduled for completion in 2027.
