Queensland, Australia, 28 July 2021 – QCN Fibre announced today that it has ‘lit’ up 35 Terabytes per second of diverse telecommunications capacity from Brisbane to the Japan-Guam-Australia South Cable System (JGA South Submarine Cable) landing station at Maroochydore on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. JGA South is a consortium fibre optic cable that includes AARNet (Australia’s Academic and Research Network), Google and RTI (global sub-sea cable carrier) spanning 7,000km from Australia to Guam.
Minister for Digital Economy, Leeanne Enoch MP said QCN Fibre was set up by the Palaszczuk Government to help enable regional Queenslanders to have access to the same opportunities as anyone else in Queensland.
“This new capability aims to support Queensland’s economic recovery and attract new investment into our regions, creating jobs, innovation and new industries across our state,” Minister Enoch said.
“QCN Fibre is continuing to use its capacity, reach and national and international connections to improve backhaul to service providers and help our regions to compete globally,” Ms Enoch said.
“QCN Fibre’s cost-competitive backhaul across Queensland can now connect our partners directly from Queensland via the JGA South Submarine Cable to the world. This is the fastest international connection point from East-Coast of Australia to Asia and one of the fastest routes to West Coast USA,” said QCN Fibre CEO, Derek Merdith. “This vital piece of infrastructure will boost regional Queensland’s telecommunications capacity and provide geographic diversity. Queensland businesses will, for the first time, be able to bypass Sydney and connect directly internationally. And it lays the ideal foundation to drive further infrastructure investment in the region, such as a regional data centre.”
Sunshine Coast Council Mayor Mark Jamieson welcomed the announcement from QCN Fibre. “Council’s joint investment with the Queensland Government in the International Broadband Network was always expected to have much broader benefits than economic benefits for the Sunshine Coast,” said My Jamieson. “It is great to see these benefits, including connectivity for Queensland and in particular, regional Queensland are coming to fruition” he said.
“RTI Cable is proud to be working alongside QCN Fibre opening up International Connectivity to organisations throughout Queensland. This network build into the Cable Landing Station (CLS) will enable direct, high capacity, low-latency access to key markets globally, bringing innovation on the ground and across the state. Any customer on the QCN network – from Cairns down to Toowoomba – will now have the same access to these global markets as their capital-city peers – helping drive regional prosperity,” said Dave Pearson, MD Global Sales, RTI Cable.
“This is a game-changer for Queensland businesses trying to grow their presence in Asia,” said Jason Gomersall, CEO of data centre provider, iseek. “This is vitally important at a time when we have limited physical contact with our Asian and American neighbours.”
“The connection means that we can upgrade digital capacity when our partners need. Extreme low latency with wave transport, delivering secure connectivity with guaranteed bandwidth of up to 35 Tb is a massive step towards bridging the digital divide between regional Queensland and urban centres.” Derek continued. “Along with our key partners across the state, we are working hard to drive innovation, connection and capability into our most remote towns and businesses.”
For further information please contact:
Emily Kucukalic
+61 403 931 360
emily@bny.com.au
About QCN Fibre
Through delivering real solutions of improved telecommunications Coverage, Capacity and Competition, QCN Fibre enables Queenslanders to take advantage of their exceptional opportunities in the emerging economy.
QCN Fibre was born from the Advance Queensland Initiative, with the express goal to ‘Back our Regions to Compete Globally.’ We are jointly owned by Powerlink and Energy Queensland, whose network we utilise. We provide Internet and Retail Service Providers increased data capacity through unlocking unused space on these established state of the art, stable, optical networks.
Our network spans more than 12,000 kilometres of optical fibre stretching West from Brisbane to Toowoomba and beyond, and North through regional townships up to Cairns. Our operations improve regional connectivity through increasing competition and supporting new investment and jobs in regional Queensland.
