Page 43 - Australian Defence Magazine May 2022

• Regional edge compute cata centre facilities that serve to reduce latency, overcome intermittent connections for store and compute, and deliver cloud-based applications much closer to regional end users
• Internet of Things (IoT) proliferation, with an estimated installed base of smart devices and sensors of 27.1 billion connections by the end of 2025, having already passed the total human population in 2018.
Collectively, these developments may be combined to provide a potentially significant impact on the network landscape and geography of Australia’s north in general, and for the de- fence eco-system in particular. And given the ageing network inventory of these regions, these new and emerging commu- nications solutions may actually allow the defence sector to leapfrog and bypass sunk investment in legacy infrastructure.
Some of the building blocks to undertake this transition to dedicated, mission critical OT networks and facilities are al- ready in place. Most noteworthy are:
• The ongoing program to stand-up purpose-built edge and regional data centre facilities in Australia’s north by oper- ators such as NEXTDC in locations such as Darwin, Port Hedland and Maroochydore based on Certified Strategic Provider status for hosted services under the Digital Trans- formation Agency (DTA) Hosting Framework
• The investment made by the Northern Territory Government in its Terabit Territory program to ensure high-capacity links
connecting Darwin with other key data centre nodes located in Australia’s south, at backhaul prices equivalent to those major population centres on the east coast
• The deployment of ground station infrastructure in Austra- lia’s north by global LEO operators to provide alternative, next-generation coverage and service options for key De- fence facilities for the first time
• The new $100 million commercial investment made by Vocus to upgrade and expand its terrestrial and subsea fibre assets to extend its reach (including to army, naval and airforce installations), provide additional redundancy and resilience, and to enable new and competitive sources of supply. This investment marks the final stage in a sequence of major infrastructure builds by Vocus in Australia’s north-west. This new 1,000km link will interconnect with the 4,600km Aus- tralia Submarine Cable (ASC) between Perth and Singapore, and the 2,100km North-West Cable System (NWCS) between Port Hedland and Darwin, with the completed system ex- pected to be online by mid-2023.
Modern networking, with its massive capacity increases in fibre, LEO and private 5G networks are now evolving at a rate that can match the emerging OT applications and functionality deployed by Defence and its partners to sure up its strategic capability in Australia’s north.
For more on ensuring mission success with communications you can rely on, visit www.vocus.com.au/defence
Go with the fibre network that delivers
Vocus is continuing to help our nation go forward, go further, and go faster, by delivering the four largest network projects in northern Australia. These investments provide industry, governments and communities world-class fibre infrastructure for today, and into the future.
1
2
3
4
Darwin-Jakarta-Singapore Cable:
the first international cable connection into Darwin
Project Horizon:
2,000km of new and existing fibre between Perth and Port Hedland
Adelaide-Darwin-Brisbane network route:
upgraded to deliver 25-times more capacity
Tiwi Island Cable:
a 60km fibre cable to the Tiwi Islands, delivered with the NT Government
Singapore
Jakarta
Christmas Island
1 Darwin-Jakarta Singapore Cable
4 Tiwi Islands Darwin
Darwin
3
Australia Singapore Cable
Perth
2
Port Hedland
Project Horizon
Alice Springs
Townsville
Sydney Canberra
Geraldton
Brisbane
Go with the fibre network that delivers. Go with vocus.com.au/defence
Adelaide
Melbourne