Aconsortium of five Asian telecommunications companies ­ China Netcom, China Telecom, China Unicom, Korea Telecom and Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan) ­ and a unit of Verizon Communications will reportedly build a $500 million high speed fibre optic cable to l

Aconsortium of five Asian telecommunications companies ?? China Netcom, China Telecom, China Unicom, Korea Telecom and Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan) ?? and a unit of Verizon Communications will reportedly build a $500 million high speed fibre optic cable to link China and the US by August 2008. The new system, to be named Trans-Pacific Express, will have an initial capacity of up to 1.28 tbps and will be able to expand to 5.12 tbps.

With this, customers will gain access to an entire “wavelength” channel with a capacity of up to 10 Gbps. Construction is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2007.