Telstra InfraCo lights up Dark Fibre
24 February 2021: Access to Telstra InfraCo’s nation-wide fibre optic network is opening up with the landmark launch of Dark Fibre - a significant milestone in Telstra’s T22 transformation.
Dark Fibre is Telstra InfraCo’s first product since it was established as a standalone business unit to manage the majority of Telstra’ infrastructure assets.
Telstra InfraCo Fibre Executive Kathryn Jones said Dark Fibre would unlock new value and opportunities from Telstra’s extensive and trusted fixed network for customers.
“Spanning across our nation is 250,000km of untapped potential that we can now begin to offer our customers,” Ms Jones said.
“With our massive fibre footprint underpinning our new offering, it opens up a wealth of capabilities and control.”
Fibre optic cables are made up of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of smaller fibre optic strands arranged in pairs. Dark Fibre are pairs that haven’t been ‘lit up’ and can be licensed to organisations that require very high bandwidth.
“Imagine our cable network as a multi-lane highway with some of those lanes now able to be licensed for an organisation’s dedicated use. It’s free of other traffic, making it ultra-fast, flexible and secure,” Ms Jones said.
“With more than 250 pre-defined paths available right now in six state capitals, connected to 68 metro data centres, 78 NBN Points of Interconnect and two cable landing stations, opening up our fixed network to customers in this way is a profound step in unlocking untapped value in our network assets.
“Available in most capital cities initially, we will soon expand the availability and use cases of Dark Fibre across the nation, beyond just metro locations.”
Catering for network operators and service providers, such as global carriers, data centre operators, internet service providers (ISPs) and over the top providers, Telstra InfraCo Dark Fibre gives customers control over their network – allowing them to self-manage bandwidth as well as add network protocols and features they want to create specialised offerings. As the fibre pairs are not shared, data is also completely private.
“Combined with our decades of experience delivering and innovating connectivity for Australian businesses, we are continuing to deliver new fast, flexible and secure networking offerings to our customer,” Ms Jones said.
Telstra InfraCo was first established in 2018 for three reasons – to provide greater transparency of Telstra’s infrastructure assets, to improve the efficiency of how those assets are managed and to provide optionality in an evolving industry.
“The past year has reinforced the increasing value of infrastructure assets globally, as well as its importance to the digital economy, which is playing a key role in our nation’s economic recovery,” Ms Jones said.
“Dark Fibre is the first of a series of offerings we will bring to the market that will give our customers the capacity, flexibility, security and speed needed to unlock new business opportunities.”
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Media contact:
Steve Carey, General Manager Media
E: media@team.telstra.com
Reference number: 010/2021
About Telstra InfraCo
Telstra InfraCo was created in 2018 as a standalone infrastructure business unit within Telstra to provide greater visibility to the market of the value of this business and create more optionality for the future.
As Telstra’s dedicated infrastructure business, Telstra InfraCo is reinventing the way Australia's telecommunications infrastructure is built and managed and will open up new and easier ways for customers to access our infrastructure portfolio.
Telstra InfraCo is now accountable for 250,000 kilometres of fibre optic cable, 370,000 kilometres of ducts, 8,200 mobile towers, masts and poles, 10,000 exchanges, two data centres, and access to 400,000 kilometres of subsea cables.