Oman Australia Cable

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Oman Australia Cable
Owners:
SUBCO
Key people:
Bevan Slattery
Operator:
SUBCO
Landing points
Total length9,800 km
Design capacity39 Tbit/s
Currently lit capacity48 Tbit/s
Date of first useSeptember 2022

The Oman Australia Cable (OAC) is a 9,800 km fibre-optic submarine communications cable that entered service in September 2022,[1] linking Oman and Australia via the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The cable consists of three fibre pairs and had an initial design capacity of 39 terabits per second.[2]

OAC is owned and operated by SUBCO, with Omantel as the landing partner in Oman, and Equinix[3] providing the landing stations in Perth and Muscat.

History

The cable was announced by SUBCO in 2020, with a target completion date in 2021.[4] Manufacturing of the cable was completed by SubCom in January 2021,[5] with the SubCom cable ships CS Dependable and CS Reliance[6] being used for the installation works. The cable made landfall in Perth on 22 July 2021,[7] with landing station infrastructure in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands also being manufactured and installed during 2021.[8][9] Final landing of the cable in Barka, Oman occurred on 28 April 2022.[10]

The cable went live during September 2022,[11] and was officially switched on by Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister of Australia, during a ceremony in Perth on 24 October 2022.[12]

In March 2023, SUBCO announced plans to extend the cable with the installation of a diverse 1,200km spur that would land at Salalah, Oman,[13] which is expected to be completed by the end of 2024.

In October 2023, the cable was upgraded by Ciena from its original design of 39 Tbit/s to 48 Tbit/s of lit capacity.[2]

Routes

The Oman Australia Cable has been interconnected with the INDIGO Central and INDIGO West optical fibre cables at the Australian landing site in Perth.[1] SUBCO and Omantel are expected to extend the reach of the cable with connections from Muscat to London, Milan and Marseille.[14] The cable also includes additional branching units for future spurs that may link to Salalah, Oman and Djibouti City, Djibouti.[15]

The cable is notable for providing a diverse international route from Perth, and a lower-latency path between Australia and Europe, the Middle East and Africa.[10] Competing cables such as the Australia Singapore Cable, INDIGO West and SEA-ME-WE 3 all traverse a similar path via the Sunda Strait to Singapore, whereas OAC traverses the Indian Ocean to the south-western coast of Asia.[11]

The cable route is also noted as being similar to another proposed cable known as Australia West Express, which was first announced in May 2015[16] but was unable to obtain the investment required for construction and was ultimately cancelled.[17]

Diego Garcia Spur

During the laying of the cable,

branching unit and spur may have been installed to provide connectivity to the atoll.[18]

On 6 July 2023, the existence of the Diego Garcia spur was publicly confirmed by the United States Pacific Fleet as part of a Reuters investigation into SubCom.[17] The article went on to state that the cable was previously announced to sailors on Diego Garcia by Captain Richard Payne, the commander of Diego Garcia at the time, during a talkback radio show on 9 February 2022, and that The Pentagon had paid for "around a third of the entire cable on the condition that it include a splice connecting its commercial trunk to Diego Garcia".

Landing points

  1. Perth, Western Australia, Australia
  2. Cocos (Keeling) Islands
  3. Diego Garcia
  4. Muscat, Oman

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Kate Weber (23 July 2021). "SUB.CO's Oman-Australia subsea cable lands in Perth". iTNews. Retrieved 1 October 2022.
  2. ^ a b "Oman Australia Cable gets extra capacity". iTNews. 12 October 2023. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  3. ^ "Equinix to Provide Connectivity Hubs for Subsea Cable Carrying Data Between Australia and the Middle East" (Press release). Sydney, Australia: Equinix. 24 November 2021. Retrieved 1 October 2022.
  4. ^ "Oman Australia Cable (OAC) Enters full contract in force status with target completion December 2021" (PDF) (Press release). Brisbane, Australia: SUBCO. 5 March 2020. Retrieved 2 September 2023.
  5. ^ "Oman Australia Cable (OAC) 100% Cable manufactured with marine installation commence in March 2021" (Press release). Brisbane, Australia: SUBCO. 20 January 2021. Retrieved 2 September 2023.
  6. ^ Dan Swinhoe (6 July 2023). "US government paid for secret spur on Oman Australia Cable to Naval base on Diego Garcia island". Data Center Dynamics. Retrieved 2 September 2023.
  7. ^ "Australia's first express cable to EMEA has landed in Perth – On track to go live in Q2 (2022)" (Press release). Brisbane, Australia: SUBCO. 22 July 2021. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  8. ^ "DXN Limited signs c$1.1M Cable Landing Station Contract" (PDF) (Press release). DXN Limited. 24 December 2020. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  9. ^ "DXN Limited signs two contracts with Sub.Co and Solomon Islands Submarine Cable Company (SISCC) for builds worth c$1m" (PDF) (Press release). DXN Limited. 10 May 2021. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  10. ^ a b "Oman Australia Cable Completes Final Landing in Barka Oman" (PDF) (Press release). Barka, Oman & Brisbane, Australia: Subcom. 28 April 2022. Retrieved 1 October 2022.
  11. ^ a b "Oman-Australia cable lights up". iTNews. 30 September 2022. Retrieved 1 October 2022.
  12. ^ Eleanor Dickinson (24 October 2022). "$300M Oman-Australia cable switched on". ARN. Retrieved 2 September 2023.
  13. ^ Matt Ogg (7 March 2023). "Bevan Slattery-led SUBCO launches new cable to connect with Europe, Africa". Business News Australia. Retrieved 2 September 2023.
  14. ^ "Omantel strengthens partnership with SUBCO". Oman Daily Observer. 12 June 2022. Retrieved 1 October 2022.
  15. ^ Ry Crozier (24 October 2019). "Bevan Slattery to build new Oman-Australia subsea cable". iTNews. Retrieved 2 September 2023.
  16. ^ "Alcatel-Lucent and GoTo Networks to build Australia West Express undersea cable system connecting Australia, Africa and the Middle East" (PDF) (Press release). Paris, France & Morristown, New Jersey, USA: Alcatel-Lucent. 11 May 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 January 2017. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  17. ^ a b Joe Brock (6 July 2023). "Inside the subsea cable firm secretly helping America take on China". Reuters. Retrieved 2 September 2023.
  18. ^ @philBE2 (21 March 2022). "21MAR22 OAC OM-AU cable revival?" (Tweet). Retrieved 1 October 2022 – via Twitter.
telecommunications is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oman_Australia_Cable&oldid=1220804796"