The site for the Northern Territory’s first open cable landing station to park subsea fibre-optic cables as part of an emerging tech industry has taken it’s next major step.
A development application lodged by Earl James and Associates seeks the subdivision of Lot 5218 in Conacher Street, Fannie Bay in order to create a separate Lot 11278 for construction of the cable landing station on behalf of Inligo Networks.
The site is near the Conacher Street, Atkins Drive intersection in the vicinity of the Museum and Art Gallery NT, the Darwin Ski Club and Darwin Middle and High schools.
To be built on Crown land, the application follows the NT Government’s decision to award major project status to Inligo’s Unite Cable System, an Australian Terrestrial high-capacity cable network connecting Darwin to southern Australia.
Last year the Australian Strategic Policy Institute highlighted the strategic importance of connecting Darwin via international cable systems.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has highlighted the strategic importance of Inligo Networks’ Asia Connect Cable (ACC-1) project, which will connect Darwin to international submarine cable systems and other parts of the Indo-Pacific region. This project aims to create a more secure and resilient digital infrastructure, bypassing congested networks and providing critical connectivity for defence forces and data transfer between Australia, Southeast Asia, and North America. ASPI supports such initiatives as part of a broader strategy to strengthen Australia’s role as a regional digital hub and enhance national security.
“To help strengthen the defence ecosystem, the Territory Government is investing in and supporting a range of initiatives that will also be useful to the forces of Japan, the United States and others when operating in the Top End,” ASPI wrote.
The site was chosen because of its proximity to the ocean and because Conacher Street is Darwin’s only road corridor that extends to the west facing tidal limits of Darwin Harbour that is not within a residential area.
It is close to existing infrastructure and current and future cable networks.
The application goes on to detail the rationale behind the development.
“A cable landing station, also known as an open-access cable landing station, refers to a facility where undersea fibre-optic cables (submarine cables) carrying internet traffic come ashore and connect with terrestrial telecommunication networks,” the application said.
“The term ‘open’ indicates that the landing station is accessible to multiple telecommunication companies or service providers, allowing them to interconnect their networks and exchange data traffic. The facility is intended to have the capacity to connect up to six international subsea cables.”
The application said the first of these cables was scheduled to be the Asia Connect Cable System (the ACC-1), which will connect the growth regions of Southeast Asia, including Singapore and Indonesia, with Australia via Darwin “seamlessly connecting to our Australian Terrestrial network, Timor Leste, Guam, Malaysia, The Philippines and through to Los Angeles, California”.
Australia is fast becoming a hotspot for data centre investment – driven not only by the rise of AI and cloud but also by structural advantages unique to the local market. New digital telecommunications infrastructure will underpin these investments.
A new CBRE report, Why Australia for Data Centres, outlines the factors that set the country apart from its Asia-Pacific competitors. CBRE’s Head of Industrial & Logistics and Data Centre Research Australia, Sass Jalili, said global backers are being drawn by three critical pillars: a secure energy grid, a robust regulatory framework, and a stable political environment.
With the further development of critical data centre assets in Darwin and Australia’s southern capital cities (Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide), Inligo’s Unite and ACC-1 networks will seamlessly connect in Darwin carrying vital digital payloads between Australia and Asia.
Darwin One, Inligo’s Darwin Cable Landing Station will be the nexus between high capacity networks servicing Asia and Australia.
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