JASURAUS (cable system)
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Jasuraus is a 5 Gbit/s, 2800km optical submarine telecommunications cable connecting Jakarta in Indonesia to Port Hedland In Australia.
Originally conceived as a link from Australia to provide telephony services connection to the world in 1995-1996 its capacity and major role was overtaken in 2000 by the 40 Gbit/s SeaMeWe3 and 320 Gbit/s Southern Cross Cable Network. It remains to this day as an emergency backup link out of Australia, as well as handling some minimal capacity for organisations such as The Australian Academic and Research Network AARNet as part of its connectivity to the APCN Cable System.
At time of being ready for service in 1997, the main cables linking Australia to the world were Tasman2 (Sydney to Auckland connecting with Pac Rim East continuing to Hawaii) 2 fibre pairs of 560 Mbit/s and Pac Rim West (Sydney to Guam) 2 fibre pairs of 560 Mbit/s and was a dramatic increase in network capacity.
Cost factors have proven an issue for the primary operators Telstra and Optus often with cables and technology in general, they reach the end of their economic life, well ahead of their operational life which is generally around twenty years, Jasaurus has an expected life of 25 years.
At the beginning of the Internet Era capacity requirements grew rapidly. The upgrade ability was also hampered by the high cost which Telstra charged to provide transit to Perth, and whilst the cable could have been potentially upgraded to 20 Gbit/s, such agreements would have to have agreement between all parties and especially APCN's owners. Such agreements were not forthcoming.
Pac Rim West itself was only built in 94 and came into service in January 95 giving it only a very short economic life, although a portion of the cable was recovered and relaid following being withdrawn from service in 2005 to form the new APNG2 cable connecting Australia and Papua New Guinea .
