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The first direct subsea cable to connect Australia with the US will be ready for service in July, according to Telstra.
The Southern Cross Next cable (SX NEXT) will enhance connectivity between Australia and New Zealand and the US, with branching units to Fiji, Kiribati and Tokelau.
Telstra is a 25 per cent shareholder of the Southern Cross Cables Network (SCCN), the owner of SX NEXT, which will be the first single span express cable, as well as the first direct cable, to connect Australia to the US.
This will make it the shortest subsea route, as well as the only cable that has landing stations in Tokelau and Kiribati in the Pacific Islands.
SX NEXT has a four-fibre pair cable system capable of transporting 72Tbps and is built using up to 400G Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology.
Purpose-built landing stations, which will deliver high-speed connectivity and low latency between countries, as well as a resilient network infrastructure for the Pacific region.
When SX NEXT launches, it will lead to a major improvement in internet quality and internet penetration across Oceania.
There are 12 international submarine cables connecting Australia to the rest of the world, and the SX NEXT cable will be the third cable in the SCCN ecosystem, taking the mantle as among the largest single submarine cable infrastructure projects, spanning approximately 15,857 kilometres along the sea floor.
“With the rise of cloud-based services and hybrid remote working models, connectivity with diversity and reliability is more critical than ever to ensure constant uptime and uninterrupted services,” Telstra International CEO Oliver Camplin-Warner said.
“We will continue to innovate on our network infrastructure and work with our industry partners on providing more accessible, faster and more stable connectivity to our customers, enabling them to connect with the rest of the world.”
SX NEXT complements the existing Southern Cross and Endeavor-AAG cable systems in connecting Australia and the US.
In July last year, Southern Cross landed its Next cable, connecting Australia, New Zealand and California.
