Flag North Asian Loop Extends Service Into Korea and Japan

May 21, 2002 - FLAG Telecom announced today that it has reached another major milestone in the completion of the FLAG North Asian Loop cable system (FNAL), extending the FNAL submarine cable into Korea and Japan. 

The first segment and eastern leg of the FNAL cable system, between Hong Kong and Tokyo via Taipei, which was constructed by Reach, has been in service since last year (2001). This eastern leg of the system is also called as Reach North Asian Loop (RNAL)

The second segment of the FNAL cable system, connecting Seoul, Korea and Tokyo, Japan, is now ready for service.

The remaining segment from Seoul to Hong Kong, required to close the loop, is at a very advanced stage and is expected to enter service this quarter.

FNAL is an integral part of the FLAG global network, providing reinforcement to the traffic flows on the FLAG Europe Asia ("FEA") cable in the Asia region. It is a high capacity six fiber pair redundant loop system, upgradeable using leading Dense Wave Division Multiplexing ("DWDM") technology. Following loop closure, it will allow FLAG Telecom to support the strong growth in intra-Asia Internet traffic and provide intra-regional, city-to-city connectivity between Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo and Taipei, and on to the rest of the world.