Gondwana-1 is a submarine communications cable network connecting New Caledonia and Australia brought into service in mid-2008.
Gondwana drastically boosted the capacity of the New Caledonia international gateway and decreased the latency to reach Australia and Western Europe, previously handicapped by a 700 ms round trip delay between Australian and Caledonian satellite teleport.
It offers the second fibre access point in South Pacific islands after Fijian access to Southern Cross cable, commissioned in 2001.
The fibre optic cable is a two-part system, firstly linking New Caledonia to Australia (and then on to the world via the existing Australian fibre optic cables) and a short unrepeated cable from New Caledonia to the Loyalty Islands, with a landing stations at Poindimie (Main island), Mouly (Ouvea) and Xepenehe (Lifou).
The need for the cable was the increasing demand for advanced telecommunications such as broadband and due to the high cost of satellite bandwidth.