The existing 9,800km OAC system will receive approximately 1,200km of new cable, laid from OAC’s branching unit to the new interconnection hub of Salalah, adding a new diverse path from the existing cable which lands in Muscat, Oman.
Announced in 2019, OAC is Australia’s first express subsea cable to Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The system was manufactured and installed by SubCom, and has landing points in Perth, Australia; West Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands; and Muscat, Oman.
Once complete, the new branch will be able to interconnect with several new hyperscale cable systems that lead from Salalah into Europe and Africa, this includes the Meta-backed 2Africa, the Reliance Jio-backed India-Europe Express (IEX), and Google, Sparkle and Omantel-backed Blue-Raman.
In addition to express low-latency connectivity, this new direct route delivers geographic diversity from all existing systems west of Australia.
“I am incredibly excited to be sharing our plans to build OAC’s diverse landing in Salalah, which will enable a new low latency route from Australia to Europe," said Bevan Slattery, founder and CEO of SUBCO.
"With a number of other major subsea cable systems interconnecting, or planning to interconnect, at Salalah, we hope to provide our customers with an express gateway for onward capacity from Australia to EMEA, and enable enhanced network performance, connectivity and resiliency for all of Australia.”
The Salalah branch is an extension of OAC’s deep-sea route which crosses the deep waters of the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, avoiding shallow, congested and earthquake-prone paths that pose significant connectivity risks from unplanned outages.
SUBCO is currently in the project planning phase with the branch landing due to be completed and operational by the end of 2024.
