Updated  
October, 17 2012 10:03:00

Telecoms to join Asia undersea cable project

HA NOI (VNS)— Viet Nam has agreed in principle to allow the country's three telecom giants VNPT, Viettel and CMC TI, to participate in a US$450 million international project to lay a 10,000-km undersea internet cable, according to the Government Office.

The Asia Pacific Gateway (APG), which will run directly from Malaysia to South Korea with links branching off to other countries, aims to improve internet speeds in the region.

As well as VNPT, Viettel and CMC TI, other participating telcos in the region include Facebook, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom (China), Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan), KT and LG (South Korea), NTT (Japan), StarHub (Singapore), Time dotcom (Malaysia) and PLDT (Philippines).

The project will be completed by the third quarter of 2014.

The total investment is estimated at $450 million, of which Malaysia's Time dotcom has pledged $45 million and Thailand's telco CAT increased its initial investment commitment of $10 million to $51 million.

Meanwhile, investment information from the Viet Nam Post and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), Viettel and CMC TI is not yet available.

Though Facebook declined to reveal how much money the firm was committing to the scheme, market experts said the US giant would be the largest investor.

As such, the social-networking giant appears to be stealing a page from Google's playbook and moving beyond its purely web-based origins. In 2008 Google was one of the consortiums involved in the United States-Japan Trans-Pacific Unity submarine cable system, as well as the Southeast Asia-Japan Cable in 2009. — VNS

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