Update on service disruption affecting the Australia Singapore Cable

Vocus continues to progress restoration and repair activities following the Australia Singapore Cable (ASC) fault.

Layer 2 Ethernet services restored via the Perth to Singapore path through Jakarta remain operational, and Internet traffic continues to be managed across alternate paths where this delivers the best customer experience. Traffic originating from Perth on ASC towards Port Hedland, Christmas Island and Anyer, Indonesia is stable and operational. Temporary restoration measures remain in place for affected services between Australia and Singapore.

We continue to work with partners in Jakarta to resolve intermittent instability with third-party network infrastructure. A new 100G path between Japan and Guam is now operational, providing further capacity to support Internet traffic into Asia and Europe and reduce reliance on longer alternate paths.  

Over the past week, additional testing was completed from both the Perth and Singapore landing stations. These results indicate a cable break within Indonesian waters, approximately 615 km from the Singapore landing station.

Restoring services remains our highest priority

We continue to work closely with our marine repair partner and other stakeholders to finalise the repair program.

Under the applicable repair arrangements, the ASC fault has priority for repair. However, following assessment of the available restoration options and their potential customer impact, Vocus has agreed to sequence the repair of Indigo West ahead of ASC.

This sequencing provides the best overall restoration outcome for customers. Repairing ASC requires the affected section of the system to be powered down, which would temporarily remove capacity currently supporting restored services via Jakarta and place additional demand on alternate Internet paths. Restoring Indigo West first provides an additional diverse path between Australia and Asia, allowing affected customer services and Internet traffic to be rerouted before ASC is taken offline for its permanent repair.

While this approach extends the timeframe for permanent restoration of ASC, it significantly reduces the risk of further customer disruption during the repair program and provides greater network resilience throughout the works.

Our current expectation is for Indigo West to be restored on 24 October, followed by completion of repairs to ASC on 4 November.

Subsea cable repairs are complex and can be affected by several factors. These estimated repair dates remain dependent on local sea and weather conditions, vessel operations, permitting requirements and the exact nature of the repair work. While every effort will be made to complete the work within these timeframes, the dates may change if conditions require.

We will continue to provide updates as repair scheduling and restoration activities progress.