zoomIllustration: Sunshine Coast Council

Australian-based Vertiv has been awarded a contract to design and construct the cable landing station for the high-speed Sunshine Coast International Broadband Submarine Cable.

The cable landing station, located in Maroochydore, should help deliver Australia’s fastest data and telecommunications connection to Asia and the second fastest to the United States.

Vertiv has committed to maximising the use of locally based contractors throughout the project.

The $6.6-million cable landing station will house the terrestrial connection point for the submarine cable with landside networks and will be designed to accommodate up to four submarine cables, should that be required.

The cable landing station is funded from the $35 million total budget for the Sunshine Coast International Broadband Submarine Cable project.

In September, Sunshine Coast Council announced it would partner with RTI Connectivity to lay the 550km subsea fibre optic cable to connect the Sunshine Coast to the 9600km Japan-Guam-Australia South (JGA-S) submarine cable currently being delivered by a consortium led by RTI-C.

At Guam, the JGA-S cable will connect to the SEA-US Cable System, a highly efficient Trans-Pacific cable which will forge connections between South-East Asia and the United States for more than 1.5 billion people.

The Sunshine Coast Broadband Submarine Cable Project is forecast to deliver up to 864 new jobs and stimulate $927 million in new investment in Queensland.

Mayor Mark Jamieson said council was the first local government in Australia to secure an investment in an international submarine cable and looked forward to Vertiv’s involvement in the project.

Minister for State Development, Manufacturing, Infrastructure and Planning, Cameron Dick, welcomed this important milestone in the project, which is being undertaken with a commitment of $15 million through the Palaszczuk Government’s Jobs and Regional Growth Fund.