Bharti, RComm in Google's 23 kbps submarine cable consortium
11 Dec 2009
A consortium including Google and KDDI Corp of Japan yesterday signed a deal to build and operate a $400 million international undersea cable system. Globe Telecom part owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd and Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications units are also part of the consortium.
The cable system, having a design capacity of 17 Terabits per second (Tbps) is named Southeast Asia Japan Cable, and can be upgraded to 23 Tbps, the highest capacity system to be built, the companies said in a joint statement.
The system is scheduled to become operational by the second quarter of 2012.
According to the statement the 83,000 km-long cable system would provide faster and more efficient broadband connectivity across Asia initially linking Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines and Japan.
Reliance Globalcom president and CEO, Punit Garg said that the company would now be uniquely positioned to provide customers voice, internet and data services across the entire Asian continent connecting the top 10 key business markets in Asia Pacific.