AAE-1 Cable Consortium Inks Construction and Maintenance Agreement

According to PCCW Global news,  AAE-1 consortium signed the Construction and Maintenance Agreement for Asia-Africa-Eruope 1 submarine cable system (AAE-1 C&MA) in Hong Kong on January 27, 2014. The AAE-1 consortium consists of 17 carriers, including British Telecom, China Unicom, Chuan Wei, Djibouti Telecom, Etisalat, HKT (PCCW Global), Mobily,  Omantel, Ooredoo, PTCL, Telecom Egypt, Telecom Yemen, Vittel, OTEG, Reliance Jio, Time.com, TOT. Though the last four parties didn't show up in the AAE-1 C&MA singing ceremony in Hong Kong, according to Sunil Tagare's article and my information, the four companies should be AAE-1 landing parties in Greece, India, Malaysia and Thailand respectively. 

Source of picture: PCCW Global

The AAE-1 submarine cable system will span 25,000 kilometres connecting South East Asia to Europe through the Middle East and North Africa, with landing stations in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Yemen, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Italy and France. The AAE-1 cable system will deploy 100Gbps technology, with a designed capacity of more than 40 terabits. The AAE-1 cable system is expected to be ready for service in 2016.

China Unicom initiated the AAE-1 cable project in 2011, with the support and partnership from Telecom Egypt. In the past half year, the AAE-1 consortium successfully teamed up Chuan Wei, PCCW Global, TOT, Viettel and extended the AAE-1 cable to Combodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong. 

Compared with th AAE-1 cable map unveiled by China Unicom on its International Partners Meeting held in Shanghai in last June, the new released AAE-1 cable map has significant achievements in its South-East Asia segments. One of the unique features of the AAE-1 cable system is that it ends in Singapore but continues further into Asia through terrestrial routes via Thailand connecting Cambodia, Vietnam and then Hong Kong. The featured terrestrial routes via Thailand enables AAE-1 the shortest latency between Hong Kong, and the Middle East and onward to Europe.  

Source of picture:Oman Observer