PLDT begins construction work on ASE submarine project

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) has begun work on the construction of its portion of the new Asia Sub-Marine Cable Express (ASE) undersea fibre-optic system, designed to improve internet transmission speeds in the Asia-Pacific region. PLDT confirmed on Wednesday that work on the USD300 million ASE project is underway. The cable is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2012 at which date the telco’s international bandwidth capacity will be doubled from that available today. The 7,200km submarine cable network, for which PLDT has pledged USD55 million, is a joint venture initiative between the Filipino operator, NTT Commmunications (Japan) and StarHub of Singapore, in partnership with NEC Corp and Fujitsu. PLDT Network Services Assurance senior vice president George N Lim is quoted as saying: ‘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.’