Recent volume and price activity has been strong and maybe the explanation lies in this article in the West Australian today.
1.The IP1 terrestrial broadband link will "definitely" be completed on schedule.
2.There seems to be mounting confidence that in the next month a new undersea cable link from Singapore to Perth will be announced ,with Singtel as "the most likely contender".This seems inevitable given that the existing link is running to full capacity.And the existing Telstra and Optus terrestrial networks are saturated.The link will be completed within two years.
3.This would result in a huge boost to traffic and revenues for IP1 which were not factored into recent business plans of the IP1 project,as no announcement had been made.
4.Note Amcom holds 30% of the IP1 project
IP1 link to gain from Asia cable
By Fran Spencer
WHOLESALE fibre optic carrier Amcom IP1 is on track to complete its $156 million trans-Australia broadband link in December - and looks likely to hit the ground running as the odds shorten on the announcement of a new submarine cable link between Asia and Perth.
Speculation has been mounting that a new cable will be confirmed in the next month, with SingTel pegged as the most likely contender with its A2A (Asia to Australia) project.
The A2A cable, which SingTel would undertake in conjunction with as-yet undisclosed partners, would run from Singapore to Perth through Indonesia with a proposed 1.92 terabits per second capacity.
Another proposed cable link, Nava Networks"$US645 million ($1.15 billion) Nava-1 broadband fibre-optic project, plans to link Singapore, Jakarta, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. However, a big question mark hangs over the future of the project after Nava Networks postponed the rollout in March.
Optus chief operating officer Paul O'Sullivan, in Perth earlier this month, confirmed discussions on the A2A proposal were continuing but declined to comment further.
The confirmation of a new submarine link to Perth would provide a huge boost in traffic and revenues for IP1, which from December will offer the only alternative trans-Australia cable link to Telstra and Optus"overloaded networks.
And while Optus is playing its cards close to its chest on the proposal, Amcom IP1 managing director Andy McLean said the Perth company was quietly confident.
"Nava, which would run Singapore-Perth via Jakarta, have got to be struggling in this market to get (their proposal) away," he said.
"(The future of) A2A is yet to be announced but demand's going to drive it . . . it's going to be huge, making Perth the gateway to Asia for SingTel and all of the big telcos.
"So we think within two years there will be another submarine cable in Perth."
Perth is already linked to Asia through SEA-ME-WE 3, one of the world's biggest internet data cable links - but Mr McLean said the cable was struggling to cope with the amount of traffic. "SEA-ME-WE 3 is at capacity, it's full . . . so (another cable) is inevitable," he said.
"And neither Telstra nor Optus have the capacity on their east-west cable to carry the traffic that would result from that (new) cable landing."
But despite its confidence, the company had not factored the extra traffic or resulting revenue from a new cable into the business plan for the 3800km IP1 link.
"That was not factored into our model because it wasn't a certainty when we closed our financing . . . the days of blue sky are over, and we had to talk about what we could achieve and not what might happen," Mr McLean said.
The IP1 network, which would link Bunbury, Perth, Norseman, Kalgoorlie, Port Augusta, Adelaide, Ballarat and Melbourne, would "definitely" be launched on time in December.
Amcom IP1, formerly a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amcom Telecommunications, would then begin a transformation which will see the Perth-born company shift to the east coast of Australia.
"We have just opened an office in Sydney . . . inevitably the company will be Sydney-based, once (the network) is up and running as of the end of December," Mr McLean said.
"We'll be changing our focus - we'll always have a presence here in Perth with the engineering side of things based here, but as the company changes from a construction and engineering company to a commercial sales and marketing company we'll change our focus as well."
Although completion of the network is still six months away, the Perth company has already sold capacity on the IP1 link.
A pre-sale agreement struck with Optus in November will see Amcom IP1 provide the telco with back-up cable capacity on the IP1 network.
In turn, Optus will sell IP1 capacity on its Perth-Melbourne link, as well as delivering IP1's data traffic to Sydney and Brisbane and giving it the use of Optus"co-location hosting services on the east coast.
The deal gives IP1 the opportunity to add new customers with a network stretching from Perth to Brisbane.
(20min delay)