Australia-Singapore Cable (ASC)

Australia-Singapore Cable (ASC)

Overview

The Australia-Singapore Cable (ASC) is a 4,600 km submarine fiber-optic cable system connecting Perth (Western Australia) with Singapore via Christmas Island and Indonesia (Anyer/Jakarta). Built by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), it entered commercial service in September 2018.

ASC was the first 100 Gbps high-speed connection from Western Australia directly to Southeast Asia. Before ASC, Australia's international telecommunications infrastructure was heavily concentrated on east coast cable landings, leaving Perth and Western Australia in a vulnerable position. ASC is 100% owned and operated by a single private company — Vocus Communications — making it one of the very few major international submarine cables in the world with a sole private owner rather than a consortium.

Technical Specifications

Route Segments

The cable passes through three main segments (approximate values):

Cable Landing Points

Ownership

Unlike most major submarine cables owned by multi-company consortiums, ASC is 100% owned and operated by Vocus Communications (Australia, ASX: VOC).

The project was originally launched as a 50/50 joint venture between Nextgen Networks and Vocus. In April 2017, Vocus completed the acquisition of Nextgen Networks, becoming the sole owner. The construction contract of USD 130 million was awarded to Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN). Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan received a USD 20 million payment upon project completion.

Strategic Significance

• ASC is the first 100 Gbps connection to directly link Western Australia with Southeast Asia.
• Provides critical redundancy to Australia's fiber infrastructure — before ASC, Perth and Western Australia depended entirely on cables routed through the east coast.
• Significantly reduces latency compared to older routes via Guam or Japan.
• Part of the 'Indigo' cable ecosystem — complements INDIGO-West (landing at Tuas, Singapore), together providing two separate Singapore landing points and maximum redundancy.
• Provides onward connections to Europe and the USA via Singapore.
• Offers speeds from 10 to 100 Gbps in both protected and unprotected configurations.
• Continuously monitored 24×7 from Vocus Operations Command Centre in Melbourne.

Outage & Incident History

In its relatively short operational history, the ASC has experienced several notable incidents — primarily caused by ship anchors. The most vulnerable sections are the waters off Western Australia and near the Anyer branching unit in Indonesia. Repairing a submarine cable requires a specialized vessel and can take from several days to several weeks.

• Sept 20186 September 2018 — ASC was activated early, before its official RFS date, because the SEA-ME-WE 3 (SMW-3) cable suffered a major outage. ASC immediately took on the role of a backup route, demonstrating its strategic value from day one.
• Aug 20211 August 2021 — The Maersk vessel 'Maersk Surabaya' dragged its anchor approximately 500 meters from the cable protection zone off Western Australia, severing the cable in multiple places. Damage: approximately AUD 1.5 million (~USD 1 million). The ship captain was arrested by the Australian Federal Police — the first-ever arrest under Section 37, Schedule 3A of the Telecommunications Act 1997. Repair vessel CS Reliance was deployed. Cable fully restored on 13 August 2021. Vocus rerouted traffic with no major service outages. The prosecution was discontinued in May 2023.
• Jan 202411 January 2024 — A third-party vessel dragged its anchor north of the Anyer branching unit in Indonesian waters, severing the cable. Services disrupted between Perth and Singapore. A repair plan was established by 16 January. Notably, this incident occurred just 48 hours after INDIGO-West was restored from a separate outage.

Interesting Facts

• 🌏 ASC is one of the very few major international submarine cables in the world owned entirely by a single private company — Vocus Communications — rather than a multi-company consortium.
• 💰 The total project cost was approximately USD 170 million — significantly less than many consortium cables of similar length, thanks to the private ownership model.
• ⚡ Just one year after launch, in 2019, ASC was upgraded from 40 Tbps to 60 Tbps — a 50% capacity increase achieved without laying new cable, through a software and hardware upgrade alone.
• 🐟 One of ASC's landing points is Flying Fish Cove on Christmas Island — a remote Australian territory famous for its annual red crab migration, with a population of only ~2,000 people.
• ⚖️ The 2021 anchor-drag incident led to the first-ever arrest of a ship captain under Australia's submarine cable protection laws (Telecommunications Act 1997, Schedule 3A). The captain of Maersk Surabaya was detained by the Australian Federal Police.
• 🔗 ASC is part of the 'Indigo' cable ecosystem, complementing INDIGO-West (which lands at Tuas, Singapore) — together providing two separate Singapore landing points and maximum redundancy for the Australia–Asia route.
• 📡 The cable is monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from Vocus's Operations Command Centre in Melbourne — over 3,400 km from the Perth landing station.
• 🗺️ Before ASC, Perth and Western Australia had no direct submarine cable connection to Asia — all international traffic had to travel thousands of kilometers to east coast cable landings first.
• 🔧 In the 2021 incident, the repair vessel CS Reliance took 4 days just to reach the fault site — after which additional days were needed for the actual repairs.