Vocus restores Australia Singapore Cable after 68 days, following crew medical diversion

Vocus told customers in an outage notice posted at 06:36 UTC on 11 November that marine work on the Australia Singapore Cable (ASC) had finished, the system had been powered back up, and early testing showed it running normally. The related ticket was closed at 07:09 UTC. Measured from 06:12 UTC on 4 September, when the fault was detected, the Perth to Singapore system was down for about 68 days.

The fault sat in Indonesian waters, and the ticket lists the cause as a "suspected shunt fault". Wavelength and Ethernet services between Perth and Singapore dropped out, and internet traffic moved onto other paths. Vocus shifted load onto a layer 2 route via Jakarta and onto newly commissioned 100G capacity linking Japan and Guam.

By 28 October the repair ship had loaded spare cable and equipment at Batam in Indonesia, and the Indonesian operating permits had been obtained. Vocus planned to fix a second cable, Indigo West, before turning to ASC, aiming to finish the ASC marine work on 11 November. Indigo West was completed on 4 November, behind schedule, with Vocus saying it met complications. The ship then headed for the ASC fault location and got there early the following morning.

Because the repair needed the entire ASC system powered down, services still running over undamaged sections were also taken offline. On 6 November, after the vessel had lifted one end of the damaged cable, a crew member needed urgent medical care and the ship diverted to Jakarta. The lifted end was secured and buoyed, with a guard vessel left beside it, and Vocus expected the detour to add 3 to 4 days. Work resumed on 9 November with both damaged ends recovered, and splicing started. The last joint was finished on 11 November, the section was returned to the seabed and power was restored.

Vocus described that as its last scheduled update on the repair, adding that any remaining problems on individual services would be dealt with directly with the customers concerned. With Indigo West fixed on 4 November and ASC on 11 November, both cables on the route are available again. Routing may not snap back immediately, since Vocus says customer services are still being validated in stages and other carriers need time to shift traffic back.