SUB.CO Taps Subcom For OAC Cable Across Indian Ocean

Another submarine cable system is in the works on a route that has never been attempted before. SUB.CO announced yesterday that it has picked Subcom to to build a new cable system between Australia and Oman.

Unlike other options between Australia and the Middle East, however, the Oman Australia Cable (OAC) doesn’t go north first to Singapore and also completely skips India. Instead it heads directly across the Indian Ocean, and would be part of what is being described as a ‘Great Southern Route’ between Australia and the markets of Western Europe and the US.

As currently designed, OAC would consist of 3 fiber pairs, with a fourth possible if demand arises. It would span a distance of 9,700km between Perth and Muscat and could be expanded to include branches to Salalah, Oman and Djibouti on the Red Sea. Current plans would have the cable in place as soon as the end of 2021.

SUB.CO is led by serial infrastructure entrepreneur Bevan Slattery, who seems to have a finger in every pie that involves Australia these days. He envisions the system as highly complementary to existing infrastructure, offering new diversity that would support growth in cloud computing initatives in both Australia and the Middle East.

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Categories: Undersea cables