VSNL Announces Construction of its US$200 Million TGN-Intra Asia Cable System

New Delhi - November 01, 2007, VSNL(now Tata Communication) announced today that it is proceeding with the construction of the TGN-Intra Asia (TGN-IA) cable system, which will be constructed by US-based Tyco Telecommunications. The investment on the TGN-Intra Asia (TGN-IA) cable system is about US$200 million.

The TGN-Intra Asia submarine cable is a new 4 fibre pair cable system linking Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan with an additional connection to the Philippines, and potentially Vietnam. This TGN-Intra Asia submarine cable will provide up to 3.8 Tbit/s of capacity to the rapidly growing Asia-Pacific market, allowing VSNL's global customers doing business in and with the region to obtain additional bandwidth, increased route diversity and extended geographical reach.

The TGN-Intra Asia cable, when combined with the Tata Indicom Cable System (TIC) and the TGN-Pacific cable system (both of which are capable of supporting 7+ Tbit/s of traffic), will complete VSNL's multi-Terabit capability from India to Asia and onward to the US. The cable will provide a direct connection from Singapore to VSNL's Transpacific Network in Japan; avoiding any other landing points and connecting to the TGN-Pacific cable system directly at the landing station.

Globe Telecom participates in the TGN-Intra Asia cable project as the exclusive cable landing party in the Philippines, the Philippines will also be linked to Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore with onward connectivity to Guam and the US. Globe Telecom plans a total investment of $90 million (or a little over P4 billion) on the TGN-IA project, which includes the capacity within the TGN-Pacific cable system, the cable landing station at Ballesteros, and the fiber backhaul.  With this strategic investment, Globe Telecom will significantly improve the competitiveness of the Philippines as a prime destination for outsourcing companies.

PCCW is another party committed to invest in the TGN-Intra Asia Cable System in order to meet promising market demand from enterprises and service providers. PCCW has forecast an increasing demand for highly resilient networks in the Intra-Asia region and the TGN-Intra Asia cable is well positioned to support the growing demand for telecom services. PCCW intends to integrate the additional capacity into our robust Asia backbone and further extend the interconnection to our global network.'

EVNTelecom of Vietnam also joins with VSNL in the TGN-Intra Asia cable project. Participating in the project, EVNTelecom becomes the second Vietnamese Telecom provider to have submarine cable to land into Vietnam. The TGN-Intra Asia cable will supplement significant international capacity to be interconnected to Vietnam.

The TGN-Intra Asia cable will also support VSNL's IP transit and Dedicated Global Ethernet services. VSNL is currently evaluating plans to develop future extensions of the cable system into Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and China, and has obtained commitments for other investment partnerships that will be announced in the near future. The TGN-Intra Asia cable is currently under construction and on schedule to be completed by June 2008.