Australia's first subsea cable connecting Sydney and Perth lands in Sydney

Singapore, Sydney, 29 October 2018 – With the landing of the INDIGO Central subsea communications cable at Coogee Beach in Sydney, the INDIGO consortium today announced another significant milestone in the implementation of its INDIGO cable system.

Installation of the INDIGO Central cable is due to complete early December and once in service, it will provide a new and unique subsea communications link between Sydney and Perth.

This announcement follows the recent landing of the INDIGO WEST cable from Singapore to Perth and the commencement of INDIGO Central marine installation from Perth, both announced in September. The INDIGO West and Central subsea cables are designed to complement each other and when adjoined, they will provide Australia’s first and only direct optical path connecting Sydney to Singapore.

Construction of the overall INDIGO cable system is on-track and will be ready for service by mid-2019.

The 9,200km INDIGO cable system, comprising INDIGO West and INDIGO Central, will strengthen links between Australia and the fast-growing Southeast Asian markets, providing lower latency and enhanced reliability. Using today’s coherent optical technology, the cable’s two-fibre pairs will be able to support up to 36 terabits per second.

Singtel’s Vice President, Carrier Services, Group Enterprise, Mr Ooi Seng Keat said “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. 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 INDIGO cable system will utilise new spectrum sharing technology so each consortium member will have the ability to independently take advantage of technology advancements for future upgrades and capacity increases on demand.

Mr Drew Kelton, Chief Executive Officer, Superloop on behalf of SubPartners, said the completion of INDIGO is a significant boost to Superloop's 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.”

AARNet’s CEO Mr Chris Hancock said: “This is a significant milestone for the INDIGO project and a great leap forward for research and education in Australia. 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”.