Philippine incumbent telco PLDT is partnering with Hong Kong-based conglomerate PCCW to build a fibre optic cable that will travel through Asia, Africa and Europe.
The 25,000km undersea network, estimated to cost between PhP30bn and PhP32bn…
Philippine incumbent telco PLDT is partnering with Hong Kong-based conglomerate PCCW to build a fibre optic cable that will travel through Asia, Africa and Europe.
The 25,000km undersea network, estimated to cost between PhP30bn and PhP32bn (US$684m-US$730m), will connect the Philippines to 17 countries across the continents.
Called AAE-1 and set to be complete in 2016, it will use 100gbps technology to serve increasing demand for bandwidth-hungry services.
The project will leverage on PCCW’s international experience to deploy the cable in France, Greece, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Yemen, Djibouti, Pakistan, India, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Hong Kong.
PLDT CEO Napoleon Nazareno said: “AAE-1 will boost our country’s global competitiveness by being one of the significant factors that could attract investors in business process outsourcing industries and other enterprises.
“It will also allow the PLDT Group to offer products and services, such as enterprise data and internet services to customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.”
AAE-1 forms part of PLDT’s capex for 2014.
It comes a year after the group and its partners completed the Asia Submarine Cable Express (ASE), the largest capacity international subsea cable system in the Philippines.
PLDT will have 15 international cable systems once AAE-1 comes online, bringing its total international capacity to nearly 2tbps.
The telco paid €330m (US$441.5m) earlier this month for a 10% stake in German e-commerce platform Rocket Internet.
