Telstra, SingTel sign deal for APX-West cable

Telstra has signed agreements with Singtel — the Singapore-based parent company of Optus — and infrastructure project investor SubPartners to build a subsea internet cable between Perth and Singapore.

The three companies have entered a memorandum of understanding to build the 4500 km APX-West cable.

APX-West will be a two fibre-pair cable with a minimum design capacity of 10 Tbps per pair. Singtel, SubPartners and Telstra have committed to purchase the entire available capacity on the system.

It will serve as an alternative route for Perth-Singapore bandwidth to the SEA-ME-WE 3 (South-East Asia, Middle-East, Western Europe) cable.

“The APX-West system is a consortium cable, with all the major players having access to ownership economics at a fraction of the cost of private cable ownership,” SubPartners founder and CEO Bevan Slattery said.

“This is a unique commercial model for the Perth-Singapore route that will satisfy the ongoing bandwidth requirements of both network operators and internet content hosts.”

SubPartners was founded by a group of telecom entrepreneurs with the goal of partnering with operators to deliver significant infrastructure projects to improve Australia’s demand for reliable international connectivity.

The APX project also involves APX-Central, a planned cable connecting Perth to Sydney via Adelaide, and APX-East, an express route between Sydney and the US.

Image courtesy of edwin.11 under CC