Telstra launched the Perth-Sydney route of its Aura Network on October 7, 2026, the longest route in the operator’s national intercity fibre network, extending high-capacity connectivity between Western Australia, the eastern states and international markets as part of a broader $1.8 billion investment in Australia’s digital infrastructure.
The new route strengthens Australia’s east-west digital corridor, connecting the major cloud, data centre and business hubs of Australia’s eastern states to Perth and the western global subsea cable networks. Telstra Digital Infrastructure said the Aura Network provides organisations with greater capacity and route diversity to move data across the country and connect with international markets.
Build Status and Network Design
The Perth-Sydney activation marks another milestone in the build, with 9,000 kilometres constructed of a planned 14,000 kilometres and active routes across Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. Telstra says the network is designed to provide up to 35 times more fibre capacity per path and greater resilience than conventional fibre routes. The Aura Network was previously known as the Intercity Fibre Network.
Telstra InfraCo’s product materials listed Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne Coastal, Sydney-Canberra Central, Sydney-Perth Direct and Adelaide-Wilmington Direct among the network’s ready-for-service routes as of September 2026. The same materials put built fibre at more than 8,500 kilometres as of July 2026 and describe the network as designed to support up to 6.3 times greater terabits-per-second capacity than existing industry-standard fibre network architecture.
The network is built with two separate fibre pathways, according to Telstra InfraCo’s Aura Network documentation. An express path uses Corning SMF-28 ULL with Advanced Bend, an ultra-low-loss fibre providing high bandwidth between capital cities and international submarine cable landing stations. A foundation path uses Prysmian BBA2-LL low-loss fibre, with on- and off-ramps supporting connectivity to regional Australia. Perth’s listed subsea connection points reach Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Sydney.
Organisations can purchase access to a dedicated part of the network, customise and scale capacity as needed, or take a fully managed service. Three products run on the network: Aura Wavelength, a fully managed point-to-point service at 100Gbps and 400Gbps; Aura Direct Spectrum, a semi-managed option providing an eighth, a quarter or a half fibre pair at approximately 3.8 Tbps to 15.2 Tbps; and Aura Dark Fibre, a fully customer-managed option moving data at approximately 60 Tbps to 80 Tbps between capital cities. Telstra InfraCo says a desktop simulation of the Sydney-to-Melbourne ultra-low-loss express link set a long-distance fibre capacity benchmark of more than 83 Tbps per fibre pair in May 2024.
Cloud and AI Demand
Telstra said the network is already supporting demand from cloud, AI and digital infrastructure providers, with organisations including Microsoft and Google securing capacity on the Aura Network. Microsoft’s Australian data centres are connected via the Aura Network, according to Telstra InfraCo.
Steven Worrall, CEO of Telstra Digital Infrastructure, said Western Australia hosts some of the world’s most geographically distributed and technology-intensive industries, from remote operations centres to increasingly automated mining and industrial operations. As those industries become more data-driven, he said, the connectivity linking them to customers, partners, cloud and compute is becoming as important as the technology deployed on the ground. “Western Australia is increasingly emerging as a strategic digital and defence hub in the Indo-Pacific, which makes this investment in low-latency, resilient new infrastructure even more strategic,” Worrall said in the launch announcement.
Worrall also said cloud, AI and data centres are changing where and how data is generated, processed and consumed, and that resilient connections between Australia’s major digital hubs will be increasingly important as that demand grows.
Oxford Economics Research
The launch coincided with new Oxford Economics research commissioned by Telstra. The report, Australia’s Western Gateway: WA’s Digital Opportunity, estimates Western Australia’s digital economy contributed $16.8 billion in gross value added in FY2024-25 and could reach approximately $89.1 billion by FY2040 under an accelerated digital adoption scenario, equivalent to around 10% of gross state product and supporting approximately 195,000 jobs, according to a summary published by Telstra InfraCo.
A methodology note in the announcement defines WA’s digital economy as the core digital sector plus digitally enabled activity across other industries, and describes the accelerated scenario as the additional opportunity available if WA increases its digital intensity and closes part of the gap with Australia’s leading digital economies. The modelling links increased fibre capacity to gross state product and job creation through greater adoption of cloud computing, AI and other digital technologies.
Oxford Economics estimates the committed Perth-Sydney and Perth-Adelaide routes could support an uplift of approximately $3.7 billion in WA gross state product by FY2040, rising to around $6.4 billion and supporting approximately 18,500 jobs if potential routes proceed. The report finds WA has strong foundations in human capital and established digital tools but trails the national average in adoption of advanced capabilities including AI and data analytics. It identifies six enablers for coordinated action: continued infrastructure investment, enterprise adoption, workforce skills, stronger innovation ecosystems, supportive planning and regulation, and targeted investment attraction.
