PLDT to double capacity of int’l cable

MANILA, Philippines - Dominant carrier and multimedia service provider Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) is spending $2 million to double the international bandwidth capacity of the $500 million Asia-America Gateway (AAG) cable system linking the Philippines directly to the US.

PLDT president and chief executive officer Napoleon Nazareno said the upgrade to the 100G per wavelength technology would allow PLDT to support more industry requirements as well as further enhance the quality of experience of customers.

 “With the deployment of 100G technology in this international link, we will be able to extract more capacity out of our existing fiber cables and support the delivery of high-bandwidth services and applications. This will give our customers the benefits of a much faster and resilient global transport network,” he said.

The additional investments would double the current bandwidth capacity of the only transpacific cable that directly links Southeast Asia and the Philippines to the US mainland.

PLDT was a lead investor with $50 million out of the $500 million AAG Cable System running 20,000 kilometers of high-bandwidth optical fiber linking Southeast Asia directly to the US.

The AAG consortium consists of 19 parties providing connectivity between the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Hong Kong SAR, Guam, Hawaii and the US West Coast and seamless interconnection with other major cable systems connecting Europe, Australia, other parts of Asia and Africa and using Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology to provide upgradeable, future-proof transmission facilities for telecommunications traffic.

PLDT was the first telco provider in the Philippines to deploy 100G in its domestic fiber optic network in 2012 and leads the country among providers with the most number of international cables as well as landing stations that greatly contribute to the flow of bandwidth traffic going in and out of the country.

The AAG cable is PLDT’s fourth international cable link to upgrade to 100G technology with the Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2) and the Japan-US Cable system (JUCN) already in 100G while the Asia Submarine Cable Express (ASE) 100G upgrade is ongoing.

Nazareno pointed out that the PLDT Group has heavily invested in fortifying its facilities to meet the surge in data and multi-media services running through the network.

The PLDT Group has earmarked P32 billion for its capital expenditures this year.

By the end of 2014, PLDT’s fiber assets will have an additional 15,000 kilometers of new fiber optic cable facilities with an estimated investment of over P1 billion to reach nearly 100,000 kilometers of fiber optic cables laid out to meet the surge of expected data traffic, more than four times than competition.