A 17-member multinational consortium will build a high band width optic fibre submarine cable system linking Southeast Asia and the US.

A 17-member multinational consortium will build a high bandwidth optic fibre submarine cable system linking Southeast Asia and the US. The first-of-its-kind $500 million cable system, called the Asia-America Gateway (AAG), is expected to be operational in the fourth quarter of 2008. It will reportedly span 20,000 km and will connect Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii and the US west coast. It will also provide “seamless interconnection” between other regions including Europe, Australia, Africa and other parts of Asia. With the capacity to provide 1.92 Tbps of data bandwidth, the cable will meet the need for faster and more reliable internet, video, data and other multimedia services. The consortium members include AT&T, British Telecom, Thailand’s CAT Telekom, Singapore-based StarHub, Eastern Telecom of the Philippines, Bharti Airtel, PT Indosat of Indonesia and PCP Company of Cambodia.