PLDT will invest some $55 million in the Asia Submarine-Cable Express (ASE) project, comprising 18 percent of the total $304 million to be funneled for its completion, according to documents filed before the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).
PLDT said it intends to generate the funds through internal financing.
Leading telecom companies in Japan, Singapore and Malaysia have committed to help build the ASE project, as indicated in the ASE construction and maintenance agreement they signed in January.
For the Philippines, the landing party for the submarine cable system will be PLDT with NTT Communications (Japan), StarHub (Singapore) and TM (Malaysia) as its counterparts.
As the local landing party, PLDT will build a new cable station in Daet, Camarines Norte, which, along with its investment in the project, has already been approved by the NTC.
The ASE project will connect the participating countries to address the forecasted boom in bandwidth requirements in the region as new broadband applications such as video, data and other multimedia services come on stream.
It will also provide resiliency and diversity to the already existing submarine cable systems such as GP, SMW3 and APCN2, which are landed in PLDT's Batangas Cable Landing Station.
The new cable system is expected to begin operating by the third quarter of 2012.
