$400-M Asia submarine cable completed

MANILA, Philippines - Dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) has completed the $400-million Asia Submarine-Cable Express (ASE) optical fiber cable system more than doubling its international bandwidth capacity and raises the resiliency of its overseas links.

The PLDT Group injected $55 million to the project that involves a 7,200-kilometer undersea cable network that uses 40 Gigabits per second (Gbps) technology and upgradeable to 100 Gbps, with a minimum design capacity of 15 Terabits.

Other members of the ASE consortium include NTTCom of Japan, StarHub of Singapore, and TM of Malaysia. The submarine cable system was supplied by NEC Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd.

PLDT president and chief executive officer Napoleon Nazareno said in a press conference that the ASE provides the first and only direct cable connection from the Philippines to Japan that avoids the earthquake-prone seas south of Taiwan which the cable systems of other carriers pass through.

“This is the largest-capacity international submarine cable system ever to land in the Philippines. It is also the most secure,” Nazareno stressed.

The system has a landing station at Daet, Camarines Norte. A magnitude 7.1 earthquake off the southwest coast of Taiwan in December 2006 damaged several undersea cables, disrupting telecoms services in several Asian countries, including the Philippines.

He pointed out that the ASE cable system significantly raises the resiliency of the country’s international communications links.

“The timing of this project is excellent. This will enhance the country’s global competitiveness in attracting investments for business process outsourcing industries (BPOs) and other ventures at a time when investor interest in the Philippines is on the upswing,” he said.

The ASE system initially links Japan, Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore through a fiber optic cable.