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Low latency is the name of the game for SUBCO as it gets set to augment the $300 million Oman Australia Cable (OAC) that has been operational since October, with the Brisbane-based company planning another cable that will diversify connectivity options into Africa and Europe.
Founded by Bevan Slattery - who was a pioneering force behind Australia's adoption of high-speed internet infrastructure starting with PIPE Networks at the start of the Millennium before establishing such businesses as data centre operator NEXTDC (ASX: NXT), interconnection platform Megaport (ASX: MP1) and fibre network infrastructure provider Superloop (ASX: SLC) - SUBCO completed construction of the 9,800km between Perth and the Omani capital of Muscat last year.
At the time Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the project as a "game changer" for Australia, enabling direct ultra high-speed data connectivity via what WA Premier Mark McGowan described as his state's own "international data super-highway".
The OAC connects to the rest of Australia from Perth to Sydney via another Slattery-affiliated project, INDIGO Central, and into Southeast Asia via 10,000km long subsea INDIGO subsea cable from Perth to Singapore. The INDIGO Consortium itself comprises AARnet, Google, Indosat, Singtel, Superloop (SubPartners), and Telstra (ASX: TLS).
To bolster the OAC's capacity and diversification, SUBCO has today announced a new 1,200km cable that will branch out from the existing line to connect to the southern Omani city of Salalah - a new interconnection hub that taps into several new hyperscale cable systems such as Meta-backed 2Africa, the Reliance Jio-backed India-Europe Express (IEX), and Blue-Raman which is supported by Google, Sparkle and Omantel.
SUBCO expects that connecting to this gateway will enable one of the lowest latency routes from Australia to Europe.
The new path is expected to be operational by the end of 2024, and is a calculated extension of OAC’s deep-sea route which traverses the deep waters of the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, avoiding shallow, congested and earthquake-prone passages which pose significant connectivity risks due to unplanned outages.
By extending this strategically mapped route to Salalah, SUBCO states its customers will have an alternative secure option via OAC for moving traffic from Australia to the Middle East and Europe.
“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," says founder and CEO Bevan Slattery.
"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."
One of the world's largest data centre companies, NASDAQ-listed, US-headquartered Equinix, is currently in the process of building a new data centre in Salalah in conjunction with Omantel, a leading regional wholesale carrier in the Middle East, expanding its footprint in the sultanate from an existing facility in Muscat.
SUBCO was previously known as SUB.CO prior to a rebrand last year.
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