Perth undersea cable faults have struck two Subco systems in quick succession inside the Submarine Cable Protection Zone off Western Australia, prompting the Australian Federal Police to assess a report of crime. The confirmed event is two faults, not a confirmed cut, sabotage operation or culprit.
Subco co-founder and chief executive Bevan Slattery said Indigo West and Indigo Central registered shunt faults “straight after each other” and close together. He also pointed to vessel activity near the place and time of the faults, describing it as suspicious or coincidental. That observation does not establish that a ship damaged either cable.
The AFP said it had received a crime report related to the matter and was assessing the information provided. The agency did not say it had determined a crime occurred or opened a confirmed sabotage investigation, according to ABC News and iTnews.
What do the Perth undersea cable faults mean?
A shunt fault is an electrical problem in which damaged insulation allows an unintended connection between a conductor and another conductor or ground. In a subsea cable, damage can expose internal components to seawater. It identifies a fault condition, not the event that caused it.
Slattery said the affected systems do not use FibreSense, a detection system deployed on some other Subco cables. He said the consortium would not know the root cause until the cable was recovered during repair. That leaves accident, deliberate interference and other possible explanations unresolved.
Indigo West has a documented service disruption
Operational details currently available apply to Indigo West, the Perth-to-Singapore link, rather than automatically to Indigo Central. AusInternet listed Indigo West as suffering a partial service disruption in an August 12 status update. The provider said protected services and internet traffic were being sent over alternate routes.
In its August 10 update, AusInternet said testing had placed the Indigo West fault about 65 kilometres from the Perth Cable Landing Station, pending vendor review and confirmation. It said the Indigo team had engaged a marine maintenance operator to allocate a vessel and plan repairs, with an estimated arrival of August 26. Clearances, logistics and weather could move that timetable, so it is not a restoration promise.
The two systems form part of communications routes linking Perth with overseas and eastern Australian endpoints. ABC News reported that National Security College researcher David Brewster said Australia has 16 subsea cables carrying 99% of its international communications. His comments on the vulnerability of cables to accidental and deliberate damage describe the broader risk, not evidence about this incident.
For now, the evidence ladder is fairly unglamorous: two nearby faults are reported; Indigo West traffic is being rerouted; the AFP is assessing a report; and the cause remains unknown.
This story draws on original reporting from Tom's Hardware.
