South-East Asia Japan Cable (SJC) Consortium Teams up in Manila

MANILA, December 10, 2009 - A group of telecommunications and technology firms -- including Globe Telecom, Google, KDDI, Network i2i, Reliance Globalcom, and Telemedia Pacific-- has teamed up today to build and operate an international submarine cable system in Asia, called the Southeast Asia Japan Cable (SJC). The initiating parties signed the agreements in Manila on Thursday.

The planned SJC undersea cable system will initially link Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Japan.

The SJC cable system, estimated to cost $400 million, will span about 8,300 kilometers. Operational by the second quarter of 2012, it will have a maximum design capacity of 23 terabits per second (Tbps), the highest capacity built so far.

As an initiating party, Globe Telecom will invest approximately $60 million in the SJC project and contribute for the SJC's cable landing station in the Philippines. About 1.2 Tbps to 2 Tbps will be going through the Philippine branch. The SJC is Globe Telecom's fifth major investment in submarine cable systems.

Globe Telecom president and chief executive officer Ernest Cu said the SJC is expected to further increase the capacity and boost the resiliency of the company's network.

"The investment of Globe in the SJC project is a testament of our commitment to provide our customers with the best connected network so they get uninterrupted and quality service," Cu said.

"Significantly upgraded bandwidth, coupled with dramatically lower unit costs, provide fuel for more Internet services, and provides even more choices for business customers who need to connect internationally," Globe Telecom carrier services head Gil Genio added.

Globe Telecom's rival company, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), has earlier joined 7 other Asian companies to build another international undersea cable system within the region, i.e., the Asia-Pacific Gateway (APG).

PLDT announced last month that the Asia-America Gateway, another submarine cable network it helped build, is now fully operational.