Asia Direct Cable Consortium Builds New Submarine Cable in APAC

Tata Communications, a digital ecosystem enabler, has announced that the Asia Direct Cable (ADC) Consortium, of which it is a member, is building a high-performance submarine cable connecting China (Hong Kong SAR and Guangdong Province), Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The consortium has selected NEC Corporation to construct the 9,400-kilometer long ADC cable, which is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2022.

The cable will feature multiple pairs of high capacity optical fibres and is designed to carry more than 140 Tbps of traffic, enabling high capacity transmission of data across the East and Southeast Asian regions.

ADC’s high capacity allows it to support increasingly bandwidth-intensive applications driven by technological advancements in 5G, Cloud Platforms, Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence. This will further enhance the expansion of communications networks in the region.

Tata Communications is one of the early initiators of the ADC Consortium since 2018. This new capability will provide an additional route to Tata Communications’ existing global network.

Carl Osborne, Associate Vice President, International Cable Network Development, Tata Communications, said “At Tata Communications, we’ve been delivering flexible borderless connectivity together with intelligent application aware networks to our global customers. Our collaboration within ADC consortium to build this high-performance submarine cable will provide enterprises with additional connectivity between major traffic hubs in Asia. This will further augment our existing capabilities on the Tata Communications Global Network with deeper reach, enabling us to offer superior customer experience and enhanced resilience. With digital technologies steering the growth of business more than ever before, this additional capability will address the increasing bandwidth and data demands of enterprises in Asia and globally.”

Tata Communications owns and operates the world’s only wholly owned subsea network that encircles the globe. This network enables businesses to reach more than 200 countries and territories and underpins all products and services of Tata Communications. Today, around 30% of the world’s Internet routes travel over Tata Communications’ network.