Major telecom and technology companies signed agreement in Manila on Thursday to build a new SouthEast Asia Japan Cable system or SJC believed to be having the highest capacity in the world. The system is built to address future demand for faster access, growing demand to support data & web applications.

It will be built at an investment of $ 400 million and will span across 8,300 km linking Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philipinnes and Japan. It will have a design capacity of 17 Terabits per second (Tbps) upgradable to 23 Tbps.

Players involved in the project include Bharti Airtel, Globe Telecom (Philippines), Google (USA),  KDDI (Japan), Network i2i, Reliance Globalcom (through FLAG Pacific Limited, Bermuda), and Telemedia Pacific Inc., Ltd. (Hong Kong/Indonesia). 

Ernest Cu, President and CEO of Globe said, “Globe as a premier telecommunications company is known to be a pioneer and leader in service innovation in the Philippines. True to our mission, we are proud to partner with some of world’s eminent telcos in the region and the world.   This breakthrough project will link the Philippines to the Southeast Asia Japan Cable System and give our customers enhanced data connectivity going out of the Philippines to Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, and onwards to the US.” 

Hady Hartanto, Chairman of Telemedia Pacific Inc., (TPI) said, "We are delighted to partner with some of the world''s largest telco players in building this pan-Asia cable system.  By providing an exclusive link to Indonesia, Telemedia will not only enhance the geographical coverage of the cable system, we will also be able to address the fast growing bandwidth demand for broadband transmission between Indonesia and the key Asian gateways of Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, and thereon to the rest of the world."

“With SJC complementing our existing Asia network, our customers will be able to address a population of over 66 million people and a GDP of $ 7500 Bn in addition to India and China markets," said Mr. Punit Garg President and CEO, Reliance Globalcom. "We will now be uniquely positioned to provide to our customers’ Voice, Internet and Data Services across the entire Asian continent connecting the top 10 key business markets in Asia Pac. In addition to improved network redundancy at multiple levels, our customers will now be able to expand their networks in the growing South East Asian markets of Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines," he added.

Speaking on the occasion David Nishball, President- Enterprise Services, Bharti Airtel said,”The launch of the Southeast Asia Japan Cable System will significantly enhance the region's telecom infrastructure by delivering better and diverse connectivity. This system will provide large capacities to our customers to meet all their global connectivity needs and exceed their service level expectations. This cable link also synergises with our existing high speed connectivity from India to Singapore on i2i and from Japan to US on Unity creating a high speed terabit highway for us between India and the United states, This cable system is an important milestone in the telecommunications infrastructure and Bharti Airtel is proud to be part of the global consortium to build the same.”