Optus tests resilient 800GE link between Sydney & Perth
Optus has completed a trial of 800 Gigabit Ethernet (800GE) optical transport between Sydney and Perth, using a dual-path design that automatically switches traffic between subsea and terrestrial routes if one path fails.
Run on Optus' production network, the trial covered about 4,700km along Australia's longest transcontinental corridor. It combined the Indigo Central subsea cable with a terrestrial backup route to provide dual-path protection across the east-west link.
Dual-path design
The architecture provides two physically diverse routes for the same service: one over the Indigo Central subsea cable and the other over terrestrial fibre. Automatic failover shifts traffic between them during an outage or disruption on either path.
Optus described the trial as a step toward higher-capacity services with built-in resilience for customers that need continuous connectivity. The failover process is designed to keep services operating with near-zero downtime if one route becomes unavailable.
The trial also tested transmission at 800Gbps per wavelength over the full Sydney-Perth distance, demonstrating that 800GE can operate across the entire span while maintaining dual-route protection.
Capacity shift
At 800GE, the service offers eight times the capacity of 100GE connections, which remain common in the wholesale market. Optus is targeting demand growth driven by cloud traffic, data centre interconnect, and AI-related workloads that move larger volumes of data between sites.
Carriers are investing in higher-speed optical transport as customers seek denser links and stronger resilience. The Sydney-Perth route is a key national corridor, carrying traffic between Australia's largest population and business centres on the east coast and a major hub in the west.
Nokia platform
The trial used Nokia's 1830 optical platform on Optus' live network. Optus called the result a regional milestone, saying it achieved Asia's first end-to-end 800GE service deployment across subsea distances. It also described the dual-path approach as Oceania's first integrated terrestrial-subsea protected architecture at this scale.
Sri Amirthalingam, Optus Chief Technology Officer, linked the work to reliability requirements across consumer and business services.
“Network resilience is non-negotiable for customers running real-time applications or managing large-scale data transfers. Today, our customers depend on networks that should always stay up, whether they're streaming at home, working remotely, or running enterprise grade AI. This industry leading innovation proves we can deliver subsea and terrestrial path diversity with automatic failover, meaning our customers' connections stay alive even when one route faces disruption. That's the resilience modern digital services require.”
Nokia said the trial demonstrated additional scaling headroom in optical transport as operators look to deploy larger links over long distances.
“We are proud to partner with Optus to continue pushing the boundaries of connectivity with this successful trial. Our collaboration shows the massive scalability and performance of optical technology, proving that Optus can deliver a world-class, protected transport network capable of meeting the soaring bandwidth needs of the AI and cloud era,” said Andrew Cope, Head of Global Segment and Customer Operations for Asia Pacific, Nokia.
Target customers
Optus said the dual-route service is aimed at wholesale buyers such as carriers and internet service providers seeking additional resilience in core links. It also highlighted industries that depend on continuous connectivity, including finance, healthcare, cloud and data centre operators, and government and enterprise users.
For financial services, Optus pointed to real-time transaction processing and trading platforms. For healthcare, it cited secure transfer of large medical imaging files and telemedicine services. For cloud and data centre operators, the focus is on moving large datasets between east and west coast facilities.
Optus also linked the architecture to business continuity needs such as backup and disaster recovery across geographically separated sites. By using physically distinct infrastructure on each route, the design reduces the risk of a single outage affecting both paths at the same time.
Next steps
According to Optus, the trial concluded in February 2026. It is now engaging with wholesale and enterprise customers on a production deployment of 800GE services with protected subsea and terrestrial routing on the Sydney-Perth corridor.