KDDI Unveils Aggressive Offers over RJCN and TEA Cable Systems

In the recent Asian Carriers' Conference 2011 (ACC 2011) in Cebu, the Philippines, KDDI promoted its aggressive offers and solutions over the Russia-Japan Cable Network (RJCN) and the Transit Europe-Asia (TEA) cable system. The IPLC/IEPL price over TEA cable system will go down significantly. The other providers offering Transit Europe-Asia solutions over the TEA cable system and the ERA cable system may have to adjust their prices.

According to the information released by KDDI, the price for one STM-16 over RJCN and TEA cable systems between Hong Kong/Tokyo and London as well as other major internet hubs in Europe is more than 30% discount to current market price. KDDI also offers promotion for Gigabit Ethernet (GE) solution over RJCN and TEA.

The trans-Seberia terrestrial cables, including Transit Europe-Asia (TEA), Europe-Russia-Asia (ERA) and Europe-Russia-Mongoia-China (ERMC),  have been a market hot for several years, for its unique advantage of low latency between Asia and Europe. But as most of the market stakeholders in the transit Europe-Asia cable routes keep a high price policy, it is hard affordable to use these trans-Seberia terrestrial routes for capacity-consuming applications, such as internet traffic between Asia and Europe.  

As nature disasters in the Asia-Pacific region have been more frequent in the past years, such as the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in March 2011, the Typhoon Morakot in August 2008, and the Taiwan Hengchun Earthquake in December 2006, network and infrastructure diversity becomes a great concern in the telecommunications and internet industry. GOING WEST to connect Asia and Europe via trans-Seberia terrestrial cables seems a common understanding and requirement.

With this perspective, related cable operators have taken actions to improve the network quality and upgrade capacity over the TEA cable system. Price seems more flexible in the market but still in a high level.

KDDI's promotion will not only affect the market players offering Japan-Russia-Europe solutions, those offering Hong Kong-Mainland China-Russia-Europe solutions may have to follow and adjust their pricing policies.