Singapore to Australia subsea cable lands in Sydney

Another milestone has been reached in the INDIGO cable system project connecting Singapore, Indonesia, and Australia.

The consortium behind the project (includes  AARNet, Google, Indosat Ooredoo, Singtel, SubPartners [owned by Superloop], and Telstra) has announced the landing of the 4,850 kilometre INDIGO Central subsea communications cable at Coogee Beach in Sydney.

This follows the announcements last month of the landing of the 4,600 kilometre INDIGO West cable from Singapore to Perth and the commencement of the INDIGO Central marine installation from Perth.

The West and Central subsea cables will complement each other and once adjoined will provide Australia's first ever direct optical path from Sydney to Singapore, with the cable's two-fibre pairs able to support up to 36 terabits per second.

The complete project is due to be ready for service by mid-2019.

Singtel carrier service group enterprise vice president Ooi Seng Keat is confident the cable will strengthen the links between Australia and rapidly growing Southeast Asian markets with lower latency and enhanced reliability.

"The landing of INDIGO Central cable by Optus is a landmark development which will boost Australia's communications ecosystem with much-needed high-speed capacity and network diversity," says Keat.

"Together with INDIGO West, the next-generation INDIGO Central data superhighway will enhance Singtel and Optus' subsea networks, creating a cable ring connecting Australia to Singapore, through Southeast Asia, across the Pacific and back to Australia.

The consortium asserts the cable system will be employing new spectrum sharing technology that provides each member with the ability to independently take advantage of technology advancements for future upgrades and on-demand capacity increases.

"This is a significant milestone for the INDIGO project and a great leap forward for research and education in Australia," says AARNet CEO Chris Hancock.

"The first trans-Australian submarine cable will provide a critical diverse express path between Sydney and Perth to support the huge data transfer demands of the Pawsey Centre, NCI, and the significant growth in data-intensive collaborative research for all researchers across the country.

On behalf of SubPartners, Superloop CEO Drew Kelton says the completion of the INDIGO subsea cable system will provide the company with a significant boost for its future strategy in the Asia Pacific region to build international capacity and connectivity between its metropolitan networks.

"We're on a journey to interconnect and virtualise businesses across the Asia Pacific region, and the go-live of INDIGO will accelerate that plan significantly," says Kelton.