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| Asian telcos join forces in submarine cable deal |
| Posted: March 2011 | ||||||
 TOKYO – Three major telcos in the region — Japan’s NTT Communications,
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) and Singapore’s StarHub — have signed a construction and maintenance agreement (C&MA) to build a US$430-million next-generation high-bandwidth optical-fibre underwater cable system called Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE). NTT and Telekom Malaysia had earlier signed a separate agreement in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, after the initial meeting of the three telcos in Tokyo. The 7,200km ASE system will link Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore, and will also be connected to Malaysia and potentially to China, as well as other South-east Asian countries. The system is envisioned to provide seamless interconnection with other major cable systems connecting Europe, the Middle East, other parts of Asia and the US. Genaro C Sanchez, vice-president for PLDT’s Network Planning and Engineering and International Network Operations, told APB that the new cable network would benefit broadcasters in the Philippines, and offer them an alternative deployment platform for their content around the region. He explained: “Because fibre connections provide better quality for voice and video outputs, and are a more reliable medium than satellite, the ASE offers better latency than the other existing and parallel cables.” Sanchez added that the new cable system offers an alternative route in case of a breakdown on the primary route, thus providing full resiliency to the Philippines’ international connectivity via PLDT. “This new route is designed to survive earthquakes such as the one experienced previously in the Bashi Channel [off Luzon]. Local broadcasters can use ASE to transmit and receive Philippine and foreign content respectively,” he said. PLDT’s new cable landing station on the east coast of the Philippines will also provide enhanced network redundancy for superior telecommunications services for corporate, small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as retail broadband customers of PLDT and wireless subsidiary Smart Communications. The benefits will extend to the telco’s FTTH and the forthcoming Internet service offerings. Hence, the new cable system will provide huge international bandwidth that will complement the international bandwidth requirements of FTTH subscribers, Sanchez maintained. Meanwhile, for Singapore’s StarHub, the participation in the ASE project is part of the company’s overall plan to continuously upgrade its international networks in terms of resiliency and capacity in response to changing market conditions in Singapore. Michael Sim, senior manager, Corporate Communications at StarHub, told APB: “Keep in mind that in a heavily penetrated mobile market like Singapore which is almost reaching an astounding 150%, smartphone devices are rapidly being adopted by our customers for both personal and business reasons, and thus it does put pressures on our mobile broadband network. “Couple that with our Next-Gen NBN, and you can see the importance of having a good international infrastructure, especially given that most of our data traffic tends to go overseas. ASE will provide additional diversity for our networks.” Will the launch of the ASE also signal the expansion of StarHub services to regional markets? “Certainly,” Sim replied. “The ASE will provide us with additional diversity and bandwidth to support the growing demands for multimedia services in Singapore. While we have absolutely no plans to expand our operations to other regional markets, we have been in the international bandwidth wholesale business in Singapore since our launch in 2000. “We currently have ownership of various regional and international undersea cable systems such as the Asia-America Gateway (AAG), APCN2 and JUS. We are also managing the AAG’s cable landing station in Singapore.” As of this writing, the manufacturing of terminal equipment and submerged plants as well as the desktop study of cable route have already started, revealed PLDT’s Sanchez. “Construction of the new cable station in Hong Kong has begun; the others such as in Daet (Philippine east coast) will follow. Laying of the undersea portion of the submarine system will commence in November this year.” ASE is designed to provide more than 15TB capacity of field-proven 40Gbps transmission technology and has the capability to incorporate 100Gbps optical technology in the future. This is expected to cater to the forecasted exponential growth in bandwidth requirements for new and revolutionary broadband applications such as IP, video, data and other multimedia services. The cable routes between the ASE terminal stations will cover the shortest possible distances to minimise latency. ASE will be installed along a route that will avoid as much as possible the critical earthquake-prone area in the south of Taiwan. NEC Corporation and Fujitsu Limited will jointly supply ASE’s technology requirements. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites       
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