PLDT starts work on $300M undersea cable system

By the third quarter of 2012, the Philippine Long Distance and Telephone Co. (PLDT) expects to double its international bandwidth capacity with a $300-million Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE). PLDT said Wednesday marine construction work on the 7,200-km ASE started last week in Daet in Camarines Norte, where PLDT's cable landing station is being built. "We have designed a future-ready network that can potentially supply more than 15 Terabits per second capacity, initially using 40 Gigabits per second wavelength technology, and in the future, 100 Gigabits per second wavelength capability," said PLDT Network Services Assurance Senior Vice President George Lim. He added the ASE system will initially link Japan, Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore through fiber optic cable that spans 7,200 kilometers. It will also connect the Philippines to Malaysia, and in the next phases, potentially to other economically vibrant Asian countries, such as China, Vietnam and Thailand, he added. "ASE can be connected to other major cable systems to Europe, the Middle East, the other parts of Asia, and the United States of America," he added. PLDT said it is jointly undertaking the undersea cable network project with NTTCom of Japan and StarHub of Singapore, in partnership with NEC Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd. On the other hand, the Camarines Norte landing station is the third for PLDT, after those in Nasugbu, Batangas and Bauang, La Union. The ASE is a new-generation, high-bandwidth, optical fiber undersea cable system, the biggest capacity international submarine cable ever to land in the Philippines. Once completed, it will allow PLDT and its group of companies, including Smart, Digitel and Sun, to serve the increasing bandwidth requirements of their combined customer base. It will also benefit large businesses like banks, call centers, and BPO companies, as well as small and medium enterprises that do business through the Internet. With the ASE, new bandwidth heavy broadband applications requiring international access, such as IP-based data, external video content, and other external multimedia services can be offered by the PLDT Group, and easily accessed by its customers. ASE will further enhance and fortify the resiliency of PLDT’s international network. “A highly resilient international network is expected to survive man-made and natural disasters such as the major undersea earthquake near the Bashi channel in December 2006 which resulted in the temporary ‘isolation’ of some countries. ASE can easily help fulfill such aspiration of PLDT," PLDT Network Planning and Engineering Vice President Gene Sanchez said. “With a highly resilient network, PLDT for instance will be able to divert all or part of its traffic towards Japan and the US, via the new diverse route that ASE will traverse if problems, such as multiple cable cuts happen to APCN2, EAC, and AAG cables which all pass through the Bashi channel between Taiwan and Luzon Island," Sanchez added. For his part, Daet Mayor Tito Sarte Sarion welcomed the PLDT, NTTCom, and NEC guests and said Daet is very pleased to host the PLDT International Cable Landing Station in Bagasbas village. He said the new facility will house the ASE cable’s state-of-the-art fiber optic equipment and supervisory systems. “Our municipality of Daet is very fortunate to host one of the most powerful and far-reaching telecommunications facilities not only in the country but the Asia-Pacific. We are very excited that, as we welcome the ASE cable landing facilities, we are on the other hand repositioning our town to become the preferred location for telecommunications technology-dependent industries. We will now have PLDT which will make us viable and highly competitive," Sarte Sarion said