Six global telecom companies have formed a consortium to build and operate the Southeast Asia Japan Cable system (SJC), estimated to cost $400 million and will initially link Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines and Japan. The companies that have joined hands to build the cable are Globe Telecom of the Philippines, Google of USA, KDDI of Japan, Network i2i (Bharti Airtel company), Reliance Globalcom and Telemedia Pacific Inc of Hong Kong.
Once operational, the 8,300-km-long cable will have the highest capacity in the world of 17 terabits. The initiating parties signed the agreements in Manila on December 10, 2009. The SJC is targeted to be operational by the second quarter of 2012.
The new cable system will address broadband demand by providing much needed capacity and faster, more reliable connectivity to sustain the unprecedented growth in data, web applications and Internet traffic throughout Asia.
The six-fibre-pair high capacity submarine cable system has a design capacity of 17 Terabits per second (Tbps) upgradeable to 23 Tbps, the highest capacity system ever built so far.
“Globe as a premier telecommunications company is known to be a pioneer and leader in service innovation in the Philippines. True to our mission, we are proud to partner with some of world’s eminent telcos in the region and the world. This breakthrough project will link the Philippines to the Southeast Asia Japan Cable System and give our customers enhanced data connectivity going out of the Philippines to Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, and onwards to the US,” Ernest Cu, President and CEO of Globe said.
Globe is a telecommunications company in the Philippines, with products and services including mobile, fixed, broadband, data connections, internet and managed services.
“We are delighted to partner with some of the world’s largest telco players in building this pan-Asia cable system. By providing an exclusive link to Indonesia, Telemedia will not only enhance the geographical coverage of the cable system, we will also be able to address the fast growing bandwidth demand for broadband transmission between Indonesia and the key Asian gateways of Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, and thereon to the rest of the world,” Hady Hartanto, Chairman of Telemedia Pacific Inc, (TPI) said.
“With SJC complementing our existing Asia network, our customers will be able to address a population of over 66 million people and a GDP of $7,500 billion in addition to India and China markets,” said Punit Garg President and CEO, Reliance Globalcom.
“We will now be uniquely positioned to provide to our customers’ voice, Internet and data services across the entire Asian continent connecting the top 10 key business markets in Asia Pac. In addition to improved network redundancy at multiple levels, our customers will now be able to expand their networks in the growing South East Asian markets of Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines,” he added.
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