As detailed by the Sunshine Coast Council, from 2020 the region will deliver Australia’s fastest telecommunications connection to Asia. It will also be the second fastest to the United States. This is thanks to a new international submarine cable contract agreed between Sunshine Coast Council and RTI Connectivity Pty Ltd (RTI-C).
The new cable will increase Queensland’s international competitiveness and stimulate new investment. With the advent of the new CBD, and establishment of the Sunshine Coast University hospital, this puts our region in prime position to benefit from economic growth.
Business benefits to the Sunshine Coast
Independent modelling forecasts that the cable will generate for Queensland:
- up to 864 new jobs and
- up to $927 million in new investment.
Queensland businesses will for the first time, be able to bypass Sydney and connect direct internationally. This will provide business with a range of new opportunities that come with increased speed and diversity. This connectivity will give major data-intensive companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon and Microsoft the opportunity to revisit the benefits of where they locate their Australian investments. The project includes a 550 kilometre undersea fibre optic cable that will connect the Sunshine Coast to the 9,600 kilometre Japan-Guam-Australia-South (JGA-S) submarine cable.
Access in Maroochydore
This connectivity means that local businesses will benefit from increased performance and speed to Sydney, where much of the critical telecoms infrastructure currently exists. It is hoped, however, that this infrastructure can be replicated in Maroochydore, giving independent access to telco providers on the coast. This would be a significant milestone for the communications industry on the coast. It wouldn’t improve the NBN final mile and congestion on their network, but it would vastly improve the cost and quality of available bandwidth to independent networks.
For those networks that don’t use the copper final mile or NBN infrastructure, expect to see better plans for business and residential alike in the coming months. Greater speeds at lower costs will be a reality not a theory. Couple this with non-line of sight wireless technology and we have a recipe for success for our communications infrastructure and therefore our business community.
Andy Whitmore, Co-Founder
