Anthony Albanese
A 9,800-kilometre subsea cable linking Oman to Western Australia (WA) has been officially switched on by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The Oman-Australia Cable, which cost over $300 million, lit up in Equinix’s International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre, PE2, in Perth.
The cable was built by the subsea fibre cable infrastructure group Sub Co, which was founded by Australian entrepreneur Bevan Slattery.
In an opening speech, Albanese said the cable would enable direct high-speed data connectivity from both the East and West Coasts of Australia to the Middle East and Europe for the first time.
“This new international cable will make Western Australia a critical data hub for the country,” he said. “Ensuring Australian businesses and industry can share data quickly and securely to global markets has never been more critical to our country’s economic future.
“OAC delivers more capacity to support Australia’s growing digital economy and jobs.”
Sub.co originally announced the OAC’s completion to be in December 2021. However, it was then pushed to the second quarter of the calendar year 2022.
Equinix previously claimed it will be the only data centre operator with an express cable between Oman and Australia.
Equinix President and CEO Charles Meyer said the centre’s completion came as “Perth is poised to become a major hub.”
“As the world’s largest digital infrastructure company, we will always be where our customers are. The OAC Cable Landing Stations in Perth and Oman will provide organisations with access to a dense ecosystem of networks and the lowest latency and the most direct path between Australia and onward into Europe,” he said.
