New Trans-Pacific Cable Systemsand Potential Opportunities

George McLaughlingeorge@mclaughlin.net

Backbone Committee Meeting, Xi’An 29th August 2007

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Taiwan Earthquake – 26 December 2006

Large earthquake (Richter 7.1) hit Luzon Strait on 26 Dec 2006, with multiple aftershocks (Richter 6.9, 5.6, 5.5, 5.4)

Seven of the nine cable systems passing through the straight were severed

Part of Asia Netcom’s EAC and Guam-Philippines were the only systems that remained in service

Huge financial losses to businesses from being off-air

Took >six weeks to repair all earthquake-damaged cables

3Network Outages by country – first 3 days of Taiwan Quake

Courtesy:Todd Underwood, Renesys Corp

Lessons from the Taiwan Earthquake Dramatically showed the fragility of the global Internet Local events can have far-reaching impact Physical failures can take considerable time to remedy Asia is particularly vulnerable Resilience and redundancy are even higher on everyone’s agenda

Several new regional cable systems are now under constructionTrans-Pacific Express (US-China)FLAG NGN (Intra-Asia, Intra-Africa, Mediterranean, trans-Pacific IMEWE/TIC (Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Europe)East Asia Crossing Extension (see later)Asia-America Gateway (see later)

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East Asia Crossing

Transpacific ring system connecting South East Asia directly to the USConfiguration: Design capacity 2.56Tbps; initial capacity 200Gbps; 4 fiber pair, DWDMRFS: July 2008

Note – now likely to be Guam only, not Hawaii

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Asia America Gateway

Philippines

Thailand

Brunei

Singapore

Hawaii

United States

Malaysia

Vietnam

Hong Kong

Guam

(Sri Racha)

(Mersing)

(Changi)

(Vung Tau)

(Tungku)

(Lantau)

(La Union)(Tanguisson)

(Keawaula)

(San Luis Obispo)

BU1

BU2 BU3

BU4

BU5

Design Capacity of 1.92 Tbps with direct connectivity between Asia & the US with landings in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Philippines, Guam, Hawaii and US Mainland.

A network spanning about 19,000 kilometers and will initially cater for 480 Gbit/s of capacity with at least 2 fiber pairs, DWDM

RFS Q4 2008

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Asia America Gateway

Europe

Philippines

Thailand

Brunei

Singapore

Hawaii

Malaysia

Vietnam

Hong Kong

Guam

North Asia

China

India

Africa

MiddleEast

US MAINLAND

Australia

Japan

Provision for extensions to North Asia, South Asia, Australia, Africa, Middle East and Europe

Investment partners in Asia America Gateway

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Australia Telstra Brunei Government of Brunei Darussalam Cambodia Pacific Communications India Bharti AirTelIndonesia Indosat & PT Telkom Malaysia Telekom MalaysiaNew Zealand Telecom New Zealand InternationalPhilippines Eastern Telecom & Philippines Long Distance Telephone CompanySingapore StarHubThailand CAT TelekomUK British Telecom Global Network ServicesUS AT&T Vietnam Saigon Postal Corporation & Viettel & Vietnam Post & Telecommunications Group