China Telecom Global, Globe Telecom, DITO Telecommunity (Philippines), Singtel, and Unified National Networks (Brunei) reached an agreement to invest about $300 million for a submarine cable system in Southeast Asia.
The planned Asia Link Cable (ALC) will be approximately 6,000-kilometer in length, connecting Hong Kong SAR, China and Singapore as its trunk, with branches into the Philippines, Brunei Darussalam and Hainan, China.
It will have a minimum eight fiber pairs in the system, with 18 Tbps/Fiber Pair minimum trunk design capacity. An open cable system architecture is adopted for ALC, enabling Parties to select and maintain independent line terminal equipment that would suit their customer requirement.
HMN Technologies has been selected as the system supplier and is expected to complete the construction of ALC by the third quarter of 2025.
Executive Vice President of CTG, Mr. Wu Xiaolei stated, "In the Digitalisation Era, Asia Link Cable (ALC) is critical for connecting and creating value for our customers, especially in Asia. We are aiming to achieve a more sustainable environment and community as well as enhancing the efficiency in our communication processes, by building strong and reliable undersea cables around the world. CTG takes pride in playing an essential role in developing and promoting cloud and network integration. We welcome different service providers or industry partners in this endeavor, in the hopes that we can better serve our customers. With this cable, CTG will provide greater value to this community of partners, service providers, and customers, and achieve success together."
ALC Co-Chair, Mr Alan Tan (Singtel) said, "We started planning and designing the ALC cable more than two years ago at the onset of the pandemic, having anticipated the inevitable growth in high-definition content consumption, trade and innovation in this region. Despite the challenges presented by safe management restrictions, we managed to come up with a system that will help meet the evolving needs of consumers and enterprises and boost local economies today and in the near future."
CEO of HMN Tech, Mr. Mao Shengjiang commented, "It is a great honor for HMN Tech to team up with the global leading telecom operators to provide innovative turnkey subsea cable solution for the ALC System. This new cable system will provide new impetus for the ALC consortium to establish digital and intelligent networks in Asia and around the world."
