INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cabling
Oman Australia Cable project targets 2021 completion date
The Oman Australia Cable project , the only submarine cable directly connecting continental Australia and EMEA , should be completed by the end of this year .
SUB . CO has announced its Oman
Australia Cable project has entered contract in force status ( CIF ) with its final system connection expected to be completed in December 2021 .
The project delivers a new international subsea cable system identified as ‘ OAC ’ that will directly connect Muscat , Oman , to Perth , Australia .
Bevan Slattery , Founder of SUB . CO , said : “ I am delighted that OAC is now CIF and importantly we have been able to secure the required manufacturing and marine installation assets with SubCom to allow for a targeted 2021 completion date .
“ With a series of other major submarine cable projects looking to enter CIF status in the next quarter , this is a tremendous coup for the project and reduces project implementation risks and funding costs significantly .”
As OAC will not pass through the Sunda Strait or South China Sea , the system will avoid many of the issues being experienced by other cable systems in those areas and form part of a new ‘ Great Southern Route ’ between continental US , Australia and EMEA .
The OAC cable system design is a three fibre pair system with an option to upgrade to four fibre pairs based upon final demand and will span approximately 9,700 km , with branching units designed to potentially extend the system into Salalah , Oman , and Djibouti in the future .
In the past 12 months , Perth has seen significant investment in submarine cables and cloud hosting facilities with three new submarine cable systems completed ( ASC along with Indigo West and Indigo Central ) and two new major data centre facilities commissioned ( NEXTDC P2 and Equinix PE2 ). Both Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web
Services have established Cloud onramps in Perth for regional availability zones ( AZ ).
“ OAC will be highly complementary to the recent submarine cables between Perth and Singapore as well as Indigo Central , which will be used to extend OAC to Australia ’ s cloud capital – Sydney ,” added Slattery .
In deciding to land the cable in Oman , Slattery cited recent investment from major cloud , network and data centre providers in the region as key reasons for selecting Muscat , Oman . p
OAC WILL BE THE ONLY SUBMARINE CABLE DIRECTLY CONNECTING CONTINENTAL AUSTRALIA AND EMEA .
David Coughlan , CEO of SubCom , said : “ Once deployed , OAC will enable highcapacity , low-latency transmission and open a much-sought route between Australia and EMEA . SubCom is very pleased to be moving forward with this project and we are confident in our ability to implement what will be a powerful and reliable system on behalf of SUB . CO .”
Once completed , OAC will be the only submarine cable directly connecting continental Australia and EMEA , providing the first secure , diverse , express and lowest latency route between the two continents .
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