Google will build an undersea cable that will connect Australia’s Darwin with Christmas Island

Kirsty Needham

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island will be linked by an undersea cable to the northern garrison town of Darwin. An Alphabet-backed project that Australia says will improve its digital resilience.

Christmas Island is 1,500 km (930 miles) west of the Australian mainland, with a small population of 1,250 people, but is strategically located in the Indian Ocean, 350 km (215 miles) from Jakarta.

The announcement via cable comes as the Australian and US militaries are upgrading airfields in northern Australia, where Japanese troops will join rotating US Marine forces next year.

Google’s vice president of global network infrastructure, Brian Quigley, said in a statement that a boatswain’s cable would link Darwin to Christmas Island, while another undersea cable would connect Melbourne on Australia’s east coast to the west coast city of Perth, and then to Christmas Island and Singapore.

Australia is seeking to reduce its exposure to digital disruption by building more submarine cable routes to Asia in the west and across the South Pacific to the United States.

“These new cable systems will not only expand and strengthen the resilience of Australia’s own digital connectivity through new and diversified routes, but will also complement the Government’s aggressive work with industry and government partners to support secure, resilient and reliable communications across the Pacific,” the statement said. Minister of Communications Michelle Rowland.

Other partners in the cable TV project include Australian data center company NextDC, Macquarie-backed telecoms group Vocus and Subco.

Subco previously built an Indian Ocean cable from Perth to Oman with branches to the US military base of Diego Garcia and the Cocos Islands, where Australia is upgrading a runway for military surveillance aircraft.

Despite being 900 km (560 miles) apart, Christmas Island is seen as a neighbor to the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean, which the Australian Defense Force says is key to its maritime surveillance operations in the region, where China is increasing its submarine activity.

The new cables will also link to the Pacific Islands Network, being built by Google and co-funded by the United States, connecting the US and Australia through hubs in Fiji and French Polynesia.

In a statement, Vocus said the two networks form the world’s largest submarine cable system, spanning 42,500 km of fiber optic cable running between the US and Asia via Australia.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; Editing by Lincoln Feast)