Google to build subsea cable linking Australia’s Darwin to Christmas Island

Australia’s Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island can be related by subsea cable to the northern garrison metropolis of Darwin, a challenge backed by Alphabet’s Google that Australia says will increase its digital resilience.

Christmas Island is 1,500 km (930 miles) west of the Australian mainland, with a small inhabitants of 1,250, however strategically positioned within the Indian Ocean, 350 km (215 miles) from Jakarta.

The cable announcement comes because the Australian and U.S. militaries improve airfields in Australia’s north, the place a rotating power of U.S. Marines can be joined by Japanese troops subsequent 12 months.

Google’s vp of worldwide community infrastructure, Brian Quigley, mentioned in a press release the Bosun cable will hyperlink Darwin to Christmas Island, whereas one other subsea cable will join Melbourne on Australia’s east coast to the west coast metropolis of Perth, then on to Christmas Island and Singapore.

Australia is looking for to scale back its publicity to digital disruption by constructing extra subsea cable pathways to Asia to its west, and thru the South Pacific to the US.

“These new cable techniques won’t solely increase and strengthen the resilience of Australia’s personal digital connectivity via new and diversified routes, however may also complement the Authorities’s energetic work with business and authorities companions to assist safe, resilient and dependable connectivity throughout the Pacific,” mentioned Communications Minister Michelle Rowland in a press release.

The opposite companions within the cable challenge embody Australian knowledge centre firm NextDC, Macquarie-backed telecommunications group Vocus, and Subco. Subco beforehand constructed an Indian Ocean cable from Perth to Oman with spurs to the U.S. army base of Diego Garcia, and Cocos Islands, the place Australia is upgrading a runway for defence surveillance plane.

Though 900 km (560 miles) aside, Christmas Island is seen as an Indian Ocean neighbour of Cocos Islands, which the Australian Defence Pressure has mentioned is essential to its maritime surveillance operations in a area the place China is growing submarine exercise.

The brand new cables may also hyperlink to a Pacific Islands community being constructed by Google and collectively funded by the US, connecting the U.S. and Australia via hubs in Fiji and French Polynesia.

Vocus mentioned in a press release the 2 networks will kind the world’s largest submarine cable system spanning 42,500 km of fibre optic cable operating between the U.S. and Asia by way of Australia.