The telco said on Tuesday the investments strengthen its Japan to US route and “confirm its subsea cable network as the largest in the Asia Pacific”.
Telstra Enterprise group executive Michael Ebeid said Telstra’s investments were part of a long-term strategy to capture data demand across Asia and the Pacific.
“Building on the capacity, resiliency and the footprint of our already vast subsea network is a key part of our international growth strategy,” he said.
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In December, Telstra entered into agreed terms to purchase a 25% stake in Southern Cross Cable Network and, subject to definitive agreements and regulatory approvals, the agreement includes capacity on the existing Southern Cross network and new Southern Cross NEXT subsea cable – set to become what Telstra says will be the lowest latency path from Australia to the US.
Telstra has also boosted its Asia to US operations over the last 12 months, with a half fibre pair investment in the Hong Kong Americas cable and a 6Tb capacity purchase in the Pacific Light Cable Networks cable, both due to be completed in 2020.
The telco says these new builds complement its major half fibre pair investment in the INDIGO cable system from South East Asia to Australia, which has reached a major milestone with the completion of the 4600km Indigo West cable lay from Singapore to Perth just before Christmas.
Today, Telstra’s subsea cable network reaches more than 400,000km – enough to circle the world almost 10 times.
Once completed, Telstra says its investments in SCCN, HKA, PLCN and INDIGO, will grow its subsea cable network ownership by more than 25Tb.
“Capacity demand on our international network has almost doubled over the past two years to over 200Tb, driven by the explosion of cloud computing, video streaming and e-commerce,” said Ebeid.
“As the Asia Pacific’s economy grows, so do we. We have increased our capacity to meet the growing data requirements of our customers now and into the future with our investments in capacity and path diversity throughout Asia Pacific.
“Increased connectivity is also about helping Telstra’s domestic, international business, international carrier and Government customers expand globally, particularly throughout Asia Pacific.”