Bharti Airtel today signed a landmark agreement with several other
operators to build and operate the Southeast Asia Japan Cable system
(SJC), a new international submarine cable system with the highest
capacity in the world. The new cable system will address broadband
demand by providing much needed capacity and faster, more reliable
connectivity to sustain the unprecedented growth in data, web
applications and Internet traffic throughout Asia.
The SJC
system, estimated to cost US$400 million and measure 8300 km, will
initially link Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, and Japan.
The 6-fiber-pair high capacity submarine cable system has a design
capacity of 17 Terabits per second (Tbps) upgradeable to 23 Tbps, the
highest capacity system ever built so far.
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 highyway 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.”
Initiating
parties to this breakthrough project include players like Bharti
Airtel, Globe Telecom (Philippines), Google (USA), KDDI (Japan) and
Telemedia Pacific Inc. (Hong Kong/Indonesia). Other initial parties
have signified their intent to participate in the project once
requisite approvals have been obtained
The initiating parties
signed the agreements in Manila on December 10, 2009. The SJC is
targeted to be operational by the second quarter of 2012.
