AT&T & NTT join Trans- Pacific cable consortium

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 26 March 2008 01:01

Business IT - Networking

The TPE cable will have an initial capacity of up to 1.28Tbps and be expandable to 5.12Tbps. Unlike any previous cable, individual customers will be able to gain access to an entire 'wavelength' channel with a capacity up to 10Gbps.

AT&T was a founding member of another consortium, Asia-America Gateway,  announced in June 2006 that is building a similar US Asia cable. Other members include AiTi of Brunei Darussalam, CAT Telecom  (Thailand), PLDT (Philippines), Reach (Hong Kong), StarHub (Singapore), Telekom Malaysia (Malaysia) and VNPT (Vietnam).

Asia-America Gateway will connect Malaysia and the USA via Hong Kong, the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii, with branches into Singapore, Thailand,  Brunei Darussalam and Vietnam. It is planned to be ready for service in late 2008. It  won the 'Most Innovative Project' award at the World Communication Awards in London in  September 2007.

AT&T said that its membership of TPE would enable it to enhance the reliability of its network "by providing more diversity for the traffic that is generated throughout the Asia-Pacific region to the United States."