SingTel Optus Pty Ltd.

03/03/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 03/02/2026 21:47

Optus completes industry leading 800GE trial with automatic failover across subsea and terrestrial paths

Optus customers can now have dual-path protection between Sydney and Perth, combining subsea (Indigo Central cable) and terrestrial routes with automatic failover.
Dual-path architecture protects high-capacity services across Australia's longest transcontinental route (~4,700km), with automatic failover ensuring continuous operation even if one path fails.
Successfully trialled 800GE transmission on Optus' production network using Nokia 1830 platform, delivering eight times the capacity of current 100GE wholesale market standard.
Optus has successfully completed trials of 800 Gigabit Ethernet (800GE) optical transport services across a dual-path network spanning Sydney to Perth, combining the Indigo subsea cable with a terrestrial backup route to deliver automatic failover protection for high-capacity data traffic.

Conducted on Optus' live production network using the Nokia 1830 optical platform, the trial establishes a dual-path protection architecture where traffic seamlessly fails over between the Indigo Central subsea cable and terrestrial fibre routes, ensuring near zero downtime for customers relying on always-on services.

This trial achieved landmark industry- leading milestones on the Sydney-Perth corridor, including Asia's first end-to-end 800GE service deployment across subsea distances, and Oceania's first integrated terrestrial-subsea protected architecture spanning approximately 4,700km.

Sri Amirthalingam, Chief Technology Officer, Optus said, " Network resilience is non-negotiable for customers running real-time applications or managing large-scale data transfers. Today, our customers depend on networks that should always stay up, whether they're streaming at home, working remotely, or running enterprise grade AI. This industry leading innovation proves we can deliver subsea and terrestrial path diversity with automatic failover, meaning our customers' connections stay alive even when one route faces disruption. That's the resilience modern digital services require."

Andrew Cope, Head of Global Segment and Customer Operations for Asia Pacific at Nokia, said: "We are proud to partner with Optus to continue pushing the boundaries of connectivity with this successful trial. Our collaboration shows the massive scalability and performance of optical technology, proving that Optus can deliver a world-class, protected transport network capable of meeting the soaring bandwidth needs of the AI and cloud era."

The trial covered approximately 4,700 kilometres between Sydney and Perth, proving 800GE viability across Australia's longest transcontinental route. At 800 Gbps per wavelength, the service delivers eight times the capacity of 100GE connections that have been the wholesale market standard and positions Optus to compete for hyperscale and wholesale contracts as demand for high-capacity, resilient connectivity grows.

The dual-path architecture is designed to support mission-critical applications that rely on always-on networks, including:

Wholesale customers: Carriers, carriage service providers and internet service providers who want to add resilience to their core network services.
Financial services: Real-time transaction processing and trading platforms requiring sub-millisecond latency.
Healthcare: Secure transfer of large medical imaging files and telemedicine applications.
Cloud and data centre operators: Hyperscale customers moving massive datasets between east and west coast facilities.
Government and enterprise: Backup and disaster recovery systems requiring guaranteed uptime
The combined subsea and terrestrial protection delivers enterprise and hyperscale customers the resiliency required for cloud-based platforms and mission-critical data flows across Australia's east-west corridor.

The trial was completed in February 2026. Following the successful trial, Optus is now engaging with wholesale and enterprise customers about production deployment.

-ENDS-

Media contact:
Justin Stolarski
02 9037 8179
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