Google plans largest subsea cable with Asian Telcos
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Google along with Asian telco’s KDDI, Bharti Airtel, Reliance has planned to built largest ever subsea cable extending up to 8,300-km with an investment of $400 million (€271m). The cable will initially link
Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, and Japan
The 6-fiber-pair Asia-Pacific Japan Cable will have a design capacity of 17 Tbps and will be upgradeable to 23 Tbps. Philippines’ Globe Telecom, cable system operator Network i2i – a JV between Bharti Airtel and SingTel – and Telemedia Pacific, which operates in Hong Kong and Indonesia are the other initiating partners while more companies have intended to participate once the project gets off the ground.
The cable should be operational by the second quarter of 2012. If the project starts, it will become Google’s second cable investment.
J:COM reports 22.7% rise in subscribers
Telegeography writes…Japanese multiple system operator (MSO) Jupiter Telecommunications (J:COM) has reported that the number of subscribing households served by its 24 managed franchises reached 2.62 million at the end of December 2006, up 485,700, or 22.7% on the year earlier. At the same date the MSO had more than 2.19 million taking cable TV services (of which 1.13 million were digital), 1.15 million broadband users, and 1.17 million telephony customers. The company has attributed part of the growth to the addition of its new franchise Cable West Inc, which became a consolidated subsidiary at the end of September last year. Combined revenue generating units (RGUs) for cable television, high speed internet access and telephony services reached 4.52 million, up 22.8% year-on-year, while the bundle ratio (the average number of services received per subscribing household) was unchanged at 1.72.
