Submarine Cable ECHO

Australia is part of a multi-partner effort with the Governments of Palau, the United States and Japan to construct a second fibre optic submarine cable system for the Republic of Palau. The system will be a dedicated branch off the proposed ECHO cable network.

As a result, bandwidth usage in Palau has increased by around seven times in just three years and today, nearly every household in the nation has access to fixed line and mobile telephony. However, Palau does not currently have any internet connections that provide redundancy for its first cable. This is a disincentive for private investment and an impediment to development.

The new system marks the first project to be delivered under the Trilateral Partnership for Infrastructure Investment in the Indo-Pacific between the United States, Australia and Japan.