Coral Sea Undersea Fiber Optic Core Connection
This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.
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A single submarine cable promised cheaper internet for Port Moresby. Wholesale prices fell nearly 40% — but for years, ordinary phone bills barely moved.
what does this mean?
The strongest source is the operator's or the city's own reporting — an official report, dataset or press release. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,167 documented projects · 🏙️ 1 more in Port Moresby · 📶 Connectivity & 5G guide · 📡 Data & IoT projects
Port Moresby connects via the Coral Sea Cable System, a 4,700km, 40Tbps submarine cable to Sydney and Honiara built by Vocus and Alcatel Submarine Networks, ready for service December 2019 and operated by PNG DataCo (established 2014) under exclusive rights of use.
📊 Impact
Wholesale bandwidth prices fell close to 40% within weeks of launch (PNG DataCo). Consumer mobile-data prices stayed largely flat for the next several years, independent weekly price tracking by ANU's Development Policy Centre found — shifting only once a third mobile operator entered the market in 2022.
🎓 Lesson
A cable landing is a wholesale event; a cheaper phone bill needs a competitive retail market on top of it, and that took years longer to arrive.
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📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Coral Sea Undersea Fiber Optic Core Connection” — Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/moresby-telecom-backbone/ (last verified 2026-08-02). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.