Telstra to invest in two HK-US cables

Australia’s Telstra has announced plans to invest in two new subsea cable systems connecting Hong Kong to the west coast of the US.

The company will invest in a half fiber pair on the Hong Kong Americas (HKA) cable and the equivalent of 6TBps over the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN).

The HKA cable is expected to be ready for service in 2020 and the PLCN to be complete in 2019.

Once complete, the two cables will be able to act as more direct routes between the US and Asia than Telstra’s part-owned Asia-America Gateway (AAG) cable system, helping to reduce latency and meet increasing demand for connectivity between Greater China, ASEAN and the US.

“As economic growth continues in China and South East Asia, so too does the demand for data. Together with the current AAG cable on which Telstra carries the most traffic today, these two investments will provide us with increased capacity across the important Hong Kong to US route, one of the fastest growing routes in the world for capacity demand,” Telstra group managing director of global services and international David Burns said.

“Our investment in capacity on PLCN and HKA will also provide our customers with greater resiliency due to bypassing areas prone to natural disasters and offering two direct, alternative paths to the AAG cable which connects South East Asia to the US west coast via Hong Kong, Guam and Hawaii.”

Meanwhile fellow Australian operator Vocus Communications has selected the ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) STT Tai Seng 1 data center to act as the point of presence in Singapore for its planned Australia Singapore Cable (ASC) subsea cable system.

The 4,600km ASC will link Singapore with Perth in Western Australia via Indonesia. It is expected to be completed in the third quarter.