Consulting and investment company SUB.CO has announced that its Oman Australia Cable (OAC) project has entered contract in force (CIF) status, with its final system connection expected to be completed in December 2021.
The project delivers a new international subsea cable system – OAC – that will directly connect Muscat, Oman to Perth, Australia.
SUB.CO is a specialist consulting and investment company focusing on assisting the development of submarine cable projects and potentially investing in specialist projects alongside infrastructure investment partners.
Once completed, OAC will be the only submarine cable directly connecting continental Australia and EMEA, providing what will be, according to SUB.CO, the first secure, diverse, express and lowest latency route between the two continents. As OAC will not pass through the Sunda Strait or South China Sea, the system will avoid many of the issues being experienced by other cable systems in those areas, says SUB.CO.
The OAC cable system design is a three fibre pair system with an option to upgrade to four fibre pairs based upon final demand. It will span approximately 9,700 km, with branching units designed to potentially extend the system into Oman’s second city Salalah, as well as Djibouti in the future.
Recent investment from major cloud, network and data centre providers in the region has been cited as a key reason for selecting Muscat. Oman has more than 15 submarine cables terminating today including a recently opened new Equinix facility being operated under a joint venture between Equinix and Omantel.