Globe invests $80 M in SEA-US undersea cable project

MANILA, Philippines - Globe Telecom Inc., jointly owned by conglomerate Ayala Corp. and Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel), has joined a consortium that would build a $250- million undersea cable system directly connecting Southeast Asia and the US.

Gil Genio, chief operating officer of Globe, said the company and wholly-owned subsidiary GTI Corp. is spending more than $80 million for the Southeast Asia and United States (SEA-US) undersea cable system scheduled to be completed on the last quarter of 2016.

Aside from Globe and GTI Corp., other members of the consortium include PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (Telin), Telkom USA, RAM Telecom International (RTI), Hawaiian Telcom, and Teleguam Holdings (GTA).

The 15,000-kilometer underground cable system would link Manado in Indonesia, Davao in the Philippines, Piti in Guam, Oahu in Hawaii, and Los Angeles in California providing superior latency delivering additional 20 Terabits per second utilizing 100 gigabits per second transmission equipment.

The cable system is expected to provide more efficient connectivity to 1.5 billion people through route diversity from the North Pacific and avoiding earthquake prone areas in East Asia.

 “The SEA-US project will enable Globe to meet tomorrow’s growing bandwidth needs and is part of our effort to provide greater costumer experience on their mobile and other devices, as well as add even more diverse options for companies to connect to the US,” Genio said.

He pointed out that the project would help underpin local economic growth as it provides support for expanding business requirement for data.

Genio said the Philippines has become a preferred destination for the outsourcing and offshoring industry including major call centers, business process outsource providers, global financial institutions, and a host of other multinational companies that require very large bandwidth.

 “The SEA-US cable system will further strengthen Globe’s network resiliency and next-generation technologies,” he added.

Globe also invested in the 8,900-km Southeast Asia-Japan

Cable (SJC) system that links Brunei, mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the Philippines, including the option to link with Thailand.

It is also part of the East Asia Cable system, Asia Pacific Cable Network-2, Tata Global Network–Intra Asia cable system, the City to City cable system and is interconnected with major Trans-Pacific Cable systems encompassing the Unity, Tata Global Network-Pacific, and the Japan-US Cable Network.

The listed telecom provider has existing domestic cable systems catering to transmission requirement connecting Luzon to various islands in Visayas and Mindanao.

Globe recently raised P10 billion from the issuance of new preferred shares to bankroll its capital expenditures this year.

Globe has earmarked P29 billion for its capital expenditures this year or almost the same level as the P28.99 billion spent in 2013.

Of the total amount, the company has disbursed P11 billion in the first half of the year. Data-related access investments included deployments in Globe’s wireless 3G broadband, HSPA+ and LTE access and roll-outs for fixed broadband and LTE @Home solutions while 16 percent of the capital expenditures was made for core-related services, including payments for the network transformation program, and coverage solutions.