Sunshine Coast Council Makes AU$35m Investment for Local JGA Cable Landing
By Chris Duckett
September 7, 2018
Sunshine Coast Council has invested AU$35 million into the Japan-Guam-Australia (JGA) cable system that will see a 550km extension land in the local government area at Maroochydore, situated around 100km north of Brisbane.
The council boasted that the investment — alongside land-based infrastructure jointly funded by the Queensland government, which contributed AU$15 million to the cable landing — would contribute to 864 new jobs and AU$927 million in new investment for the state, with Mayor Mark Jamieson saying those numbers were on the conservative side, and the landing was a “game-changer”.
“The Sunshine Coast will provide the fastest, most affordable international connection point for Queensland and Australia to Asia, providing a significant step-change in Queensland's attractiveness as an investment location,” Jamieson said.
“This project will stimulate investment and jobs growth on the Sunshine Coast thanks to the superior telecommunications connectivity and data infrastructure and could serve to attract some of the world's biggest data users to our region.”
The mayor said local rate payers would benefit from customers paying to use the Sunshine Coast connection.
“Once again, our council is at the forefront of thinking outside the square, securing new revenue sources and pursuing opportunities to generate economic and employment growth as a major dividend for our residents, thus ensuring we continue to be Australia's healthy, smart, creative region,” he said.
Jamieson pointed out that much of Queensland's communications head down to New South Wales before heading overseas.
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Sole developer of the north part of the JGA cable, and in league with AARNet and Google for the southern part, RCI said the Queensland landing would be quicker than the one in Sydney.
“This new path will deliver traffic into and out of Australia faster than the Sydney route because it is geographically closer to mainland China and Hong Kong, where there are over 1.1 billion people,” RCI CEO Russ Matulich said.
