INDIGO subsea cable reaches Sydney

The INDIGO Central subsea cable has been landed at Coogee Beach in Sydney, Australia.

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. The entire cable system is expected to be in service by mid-2019.

The consortium project is backed by  AARNet, Google, Indosat Ooredoo, Singtel, SubPartners and Telstra.

The system will feature a two-fibre pair 'open cable' design and spectrum- sharing technology. This design will allow consortium members to share ownership of spectrum resources provided by the cable and allow them to independently leverage technology advances and implement future upgrades as required.

Utilising coherent optical technology, each of the two fibre pairs will provide a minimum capacity of 18 Tbps, with the option to further increase this capacity in the future.

In April 2007, the consortium selected Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) for the construction of a new subsea cable system.

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.”

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.”