FEPL GOES BEYOND

FEPL GOES BEYOND Developing Asia Connectivity to US and Europe Via a Global Consortia Model

BY PETER BANNISTER AND GARY KENNEDY

OUR VISION

Fibre Expressway Pty Ltd (FEPL) is developing a US$1.5B technology ecosystem to make Australia a leader in global digital hubs and create hundreds of local jobs. Project Koete will include three Tier IV Data Centres paired to a dedicated-design subsea cable system to provide global and domestic connectivity in the region.

‘Koete’ is Japanese that means ‘to go beyond’ and Project Koete will provide vital data and internet connectivity domestically between Perth and Darwin, while directly connecting the cities and territories to international business hubs in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan and beyond in Asia Pacific and worldwide. It will be a major drawcard for attracting multinational businesses to the region and will boost digital investment, particularly from the natural resources, finance, and cloud computing industries.

Project Koete’s vision includes:

• ENVIRONMENT: Koete aims to deliver 100% renewable energy targeting 30+ year scalability assuredness so customers have a growth plan for decades, not short to medium term.

• SOCIAL: Koete’s Indigenous engagement is key to Western Australia / Northern Territories and continues to seek interactive discussion regarding jobs and social & economic benefits and e-Health and e-Learning.

• GOVERNACE: Koete adopts a global Consortia Outsource model to reduce project risk, promote success and ensure the project will be delivered under world leading governance

Subsea Cables carry 95% of global demand driven by increased bandwidth for Cloud, Mobile and the ever-increasing demands of COVID for remote working, video conferencing, online education, entertainment, and social networking. Content providers such as YouTube and Netflix, and Internet providers are all actively investing in subsea cables with Google and Facebook able to fund networks. Global colocation and interconnect trends will attract more users to leverage subsea cables. Current growth rate of data running over subsea cables is 40%, reaching 6,000 Kilo Terabytes per month by 2022. Subsea cable capacity has gone from 6 to 24 fibre pairs with each pair supporting a capacity of 60 Tbps. Subsea cables will remain the principal way digital workloads will be transferred globally.

Project Koete will support the future of domestic industry and serve the growing requirement for secure, strategically positioned data hubs from global multinational-corporations, as well as be a gateway from Australia to Southeast Asia and beyond with an estimated ready for service date of 2025. The project design will be SMART (Science Monitoring And Reliable Telecoms) cable enabled. The project is being primarily funded by US1.5B in senior debt and equity, both of which are in progress and open for new investors.

DATA CENTRES

The pre Covid-19 demand market size for Asia Pacific Data Centres was US$28B by 2024, 20% higher than the US$23.4B size of North America. Subsequently, the Singaporean government recently imposed a three-year moratorium on new Data Centres.

Data Centres are physical facilities used to house critical applications and data. Data Centre design is based on a network of computing and storage which enables delivery and sharing of data. Content providers seek carrier-neutral Data Centre facilities near customers and business opportunity. The Data Centre segment performed well above average over the past 18 months due to COVID and a 47% surge in global Internet traffic in 2020. This translated to a spike in Data Centre storage demand. Total Data Centre measurements in Asia Pacific Tier I markets (Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, Hong Kong) were 322 MW in 2020, which was double that of 2019.

Project Koete includes three greenfield Tier IV Data Centres in Perth, Darwin and Dampier initially providing a combined 60-Megawatt capacity with 10,000 Kms secure, carrier neutral, high speed, low latency cable linking Perth to Darwin and Perth to Malaysia via Indonesia and Singapore over sixteen fibre pairs providing 5G capability and unprecedented reliability.

The Data Centres will be critical to facilitating connectivity in Project Koete and will be built to the Tier IV Uptime Institute standard and the highest levels of security and efficiency. The initial capacity for each will be 20MW – the equivalent of power for 13,000 homes – with ample pre-built capacity and room to grow. The cable landing station (CLS) will be the primary connection point from Perth and Darwin to the subsea cable.

CUSTOMER LOCATION

Perth is the most isolated capital city globally and the operational base for Project Koete and it sits ‘right next door’ to Asia Pacific, home to 4.1B people, or some two thirds of global population. Western Australia and Northwest Territories are a safe back up hub for global Multinational Corporations (MNC) with Data Centres in Asia Pacific and Europe/USA, accentuating the need by recent political tensions in the South China Sea. Perth is closer to Asia Pacific than Sydney or Melbourne and as such offers far lower latency (faster) connectivity to Asia Pac. Thus, new location opportunities can be offered for global Financial Services and Digital Trading companies’ personnel to operate and live resulting in numerous new prospects for Offshore and Onshore Construction and Development Projects and the Real Estate sector.

Project Koete will provide global connectivity from Perth via Indonesia, Singapore, and Darwin (NT) and onward to the West Coast of America. Its domestic network will connect Perth to Darwin with ‘onshore’ connections at Geraldton, Carnarvon, Exmouth, Dampier, Port Hedland, and Broome, which will for the first time truly facilitate contestable bandwidth north of Perth, a traditionally monopolistic service via ‘government bred Telcos.’ Project Koete will be flexible regarding finalizing locations to accommodate developing Western Australian and Northwest Territorial projects.

SYSTEM SUSTAINABILITY

In 2021, the West Australian businessman Dr Andrew Forrest, nicknamed Twiggy and best known as the former CEO of Fortescue Metals Group, as well as having other interests in the mining and cattle stations, gave his commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2030 and created Fortescue Future Industries (FFI), a developer, financier, and operator of a global portfolio of renewable energy resources with the goal of producing green energy at scale. This is great news for FEPL and Australia and the global push for such measures.

FEPL is partnering with wind, solar and, in the longer term, ocean and clean hydrogen providers to satisfy the need for 100% renewable energy access over time. As such, we are targeting thirty plus years scalability assuredness, enabling customers to plan for decades, not just years. By collaborating with our global partner network, we are confident Project Koete will be delivered under world-leading governance and rule-of-law standards and will be the most significant technological investment Western Australia and the Northern Territories have ever seen.

As the economy increasingly digitises, this investment signals to Australia, Asia Pacific, and the rest of the world that this region is ready to become a digital hub. The ecosystem will support the region’s most significant developments, including the enhanced digitisation of oil fields supporting next-generation digital infrastructure including IoT, artificial intelligence, and even support the monitoring of underwater seismic activity to help predict tsunamis, maritime activity and its impact on global warming, and water temperature and level.

SMART CHOICE

FEPL is an active member of a Joint Task Force ( JTF) led by three UN agencies (ITU/WMO/UNESCO-IOC) that is working to bring this initiative to fruition by exploring the ocean science and early warning improvements available from SMART cable data, and the social, technological and financial elements of realising such a global network. Our ocean is key to understanding social threats including climate change, sea level rise, ocean warming, tsunamis and earthquakes. Because the ocean is difficult and costly to monitor, we lack vital data needed to adequately model, understand, and address these threats.

One solution is to integrate sensors into future undersea telecommunications cables. This is the mission of the SMART cable initiative. SMART sensors would “piggyback” on the power and communications infrastructure of a million kilometres of undersea fibre optic cable and thousands of repeaters, creating the potential for seafloor-based global ocean observing at a modest incremental cost. Initial sensors would measure temperature, pressure and seismic acceleration. Resulting data would address two critical scientific and social issues: the long-term need for sustained climate-quality data from the under-sampled ocean (e.g., deep ocean temperature, sea level, and circulation), and the near-term need for improvements to global tsunami warning networks.

Simulations show that deep ocean temperature and pressure measurements can improve estimates of ocean circulation and heat content, and cable-based pressure and seismic-acceleration sensors can improve tsunami warning times and earthquake parameters. The technology of integrating these sensors into fibre optic cables is discussed, addressing sea and land-based elements plus delivery of real-time open data products to end users. The science and business case for SMART cables is evaluated. SMART cables have been endorsed by major ocean science organizations, and the JTF is working with cable suppliers and sponsors, multilateral development banks and end users to incorporate SMART capabilities into future cable projects. Project Koete would be the first such cable in the Asia Pacific and a major boost for Western Australia and Northern Territories on the global stage whilst also protecting ocean environment and industries. By investing now, we can build a global ocean network of SMART cable sensors, creating a transformative addition to the Global Ocean Observing System.

COMMUNITY SUPPORT

This ecosystem will facilitate onshore connectivity for remote indigenous communities and mining industries and provide mobile operators a solution to challenge the monopolistic services that exist North of Perth. Koete is expected to bring hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars to the region, while offering unparalleled connectivity to the Oil & Gas fields off north-western Australia.

Project Koete will offer less than half of the latency in connection to Asia compared with a Sydney-to-Singapore connection, and there will be huge environmental benefits from the project, as the rollout links to several renewable energy projects across the region.

Western Australia benefits by being a safe back up for global MNCs with Data Centres in Asia Pacific and Europe/USA and with the Singapore Government recently imposing a 3-year moratorium on Data Centres. It is a major opportunity/benefit for WA to provide:

• New Jobs in construction (3,000 over 3 years) and operate (1,000 per annum for operations)

• High speed, low latency connections between Perth and regional locations, including indigenous communities

• Strategically servicing MNC’s based in Western Australia with modern and competitive links to Southeast Asia and beyond

• Provision of global remote operations and control services to offshore Oil & Gas companies

• Introduction of new global business opportunities to Western Australia

• Storage and connectivity for global industries to generate new business, jobs and revenues including Content Providers, AI, IoT, Big Data, Connected Transport, Wearables, Financial Services, Education, and other emerging technologies

CONCLUSION

Project Koete will combine the benefits of greater interconnectivity between north and western Australia and the world, encouraging greater investment in the region, and improving data security and sovereignty. As well as being a key driver for construction, engineering, and other jobs as well as huge investment in the region, Project Koete will provide benefits to Indigenous communities by way of jobs and eHealth and eLearning.

Project Koete will provide capacity for multinational cloud giants and global financial services companies to diversify beyond traditional data centre hubs such as Sydney, Melbourne, and Singapore. It will also provide valuable infrastructure on which telcos can build new services. STF

Peter Bannister, Founder of FEPL

PETER BANNISTER is the Founder of FEPL currently based in Perth, WA. Over 35 years’ experience in design, build, operation of global telecoms. Experienced in start-up, development and ongoing operations of global telecoms entities and well versed in managing the challenges of large geographically dispersed projects involving multi-national/ cultural internal teams and external vendors with contracts budgets worth more than US$5B. Previous experience with BP UK and Asia Pacific whose projects portfolio included subsea cable installations in the UK North Sea and Gulf of Mexico. Strong Asia Pacific and global experience.

Gary Kennedy, CEO of FEPL

GARY KENNEDY is CEO of FEPL and has over 30 years’ experience in Finance and Commerce. Born and bred in Western Australia, he brings a unique understanding of domestic and international capital markets and logistics of commercial ventures.

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