PLDT Inc. is investing P500 million in an international submarine cable system that will link the Philippines to three continents.
Scheduled to be launched before the year ends, the Asia-Africa-Europe 1 Submarine Cable System (AAE-1) will span roughly 25,000 kilometers and will help expand PLDT’s network capacity and resiliency, according to PLDT Global Corp. President Kat Luna-Abelarde. She said the project will be built by a consortium of different telecommunication companies from Asia, Europe and Africa, where PLDT is a member.
“The AAE-1 cable system will further reinforce the resiliency of PLDT’s overseas links, expand the capacity and enhance the quality of our data and Internet connections,” she said. The AAE-1 cable system, in tandem with the other international cable facilities that land in the Philippines, will connect the country to 19 destinations.
“It will further accelerate PLDT’s digital pivot and expansion, allowing it to serve more customers not only in the country but in the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe, as well,” Abelarde said.
She added that AAE-1 will further enhance the PLDT group’s capability to offer customers bandwidth-heavy broadband applications that require international access, such as Internet Protocol-based data, external video content and other multimedia services.
PLDT International Network Vice President Gene Sanchez said the submarine infrastructure will have a 100-gigabits-per-second transmission technology and deployed with minimum design capacity of 40 terabits per second. It will reinforce PLDT’s international links to Europe and the Middle East via its point-of-presence facilities in Hong Kong and Singapore, Sanchez added.
With AAE-1, the PLDT Group’s total international capacity will be over 4 Terabits per second (Tbps), he added.