Australia is a stable and democratic diverse country with a population of over 25.46 million, and an internet penetration rate of 88.2% (20.28 million internet users). As the Earth’s sixth largest country in land area Australia presents very unique challenges to the technology sector. As a result, the bulk of Australian data centers are located on the eastern coast between Brisbane and Melbourne.
Data Center & Telecommunications Economy
The total GDP of Australia is over US $1.34 trillion and with a contribution of 5.1% from the digital economy, Australia’s data center industry is thriving. Besides Australian data centers, the digital economy includes 8.09 million fixed line telephone subscriptions and 28.27 million mobile telephone subscriptions.
Data Center Markets
Australia contains several data center clusters throughout the country providing plenty of colocation opportunities. The primary colocation data center markets in Australia are:
Australia is well connected to the Asia Pacific market with submarine cables extending from Sydney and Perth to Singapore, Hong Kong, Guam, Hawaii and New Zealand. There are 308 Australian data centers, the majority of these colocation facilities are located along the eastern coast in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Large carrier neutral Australian data centers feature rich ecosystems and state-of-the-art equipment, ensuring maximum uptime and connectivity to over 3,790 service providers.
Energy Distribution
Australia is powered by 28% renewable or green energy sources, with the remaining provided by fossil fuels. This gives Australian colocation facilities significant opportunities to take advantage of green energy. In addition to green energy, data center consumers enjoy a range of PUE scores between 1.05 and 3.50, with the average PUE for Australian data centers sitting at 1.48. Australian colocation facilities provide over 1615.55 MW of power and has a range of rack power options from 1.20 kW to 7.50 kW.
Telecommunications History of Australia
Prior to the Federation of Australia in 1901 there were six separate communication networks, each network owned and operated by the Australian government. These networks were consolidated by 1935 and managed by the Postmaster-General’s department until 1975 when they were transferred to Telecom Australia (now Telstra). Telecom Australia effectively operated as a monopoly up until 1997 when the telecommunications industry was deregulated. Since 1997, Australia has experienced accelerated telecommunications, data center and cloud growth.
Cloudscene Australian Facts
- Total number of Australian data centers: 308
- Total number of cloud service providers: 3,790
- Total number of network fabrics: 21
- Latest Australian data center added: S4
- Latest Australian data center service provider: NEXTDC
- Number of certified colocation facilities in Australia: 74 consisting of Uptime Certified Data Centers and ISO Certified Data Centers.