The SEA-ME-WE 5 Consortium announced the completion of the 20,000-kilometer subsea cable infrastructure developed by a 16-nation consortium. The SEA-ME-WE 5 subsea cable system, spanning over 16 countries from Southeast Asia to Western Europe, is a technological breakthrough which marks a global communications milestone. It is designed with a capacity of 24 Terabits per second on 3-fibre pairs, fully capable of accommodating the future demand of data from other bandwidth-intensive applications.
The SEA-ME-WE 5 submarine cable's advanced 100Gbps technology is expected to meet the quadrupling of bandwidth demand between Europe and Asia, providing the lowest latency and further enhancing the network diversity and resilience to the heavily loaded Asia to Europe route. In contrast with other submarine cable systems, the SEA-ME-WE 5's main endpoints are carrier-neutral/open Points-of-Presence (PoPs) and not just Cable Landing Stations (CLS).
Eric Handa, CEO of APTelecom said in a recent industry discussion regarding new submarine fiber systems: "With the advent of increased telecommunication needs in the emerging markets, in particular the Middle East and Southeast Asia, the SEA-WE-ME 5 cable system will enable and support the tele-density increases and overall growth aspects of video, voice, data, and advanced technologies for the Gulf State communities, as well as ASEAN."
It seems like only yesterday when Singtel completed the landing of the SEA-ME-WE 5 undersea cable at Tuas, Singapore, marking a major step towards its completion by the end of 2016.
Mr Bill Chang, Chief Executive Officer, Group Enterprise at Singtel recently said: "As a multi-regional data superhighway, the SEA-ME-WE 5 cable provides a sevenfold capacity increase along the corridor connecting Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Western Europe. It will further boost the digital economy as it is ready to meet the anticipated data traffic of emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things, analytics and cloud services."
"With our data centers in Singapore, our global customers can gain access to an enhanced network for managed services and cyber security solutions. The SEA-ME-WE 5 cable is a significant communications backbone that reinforces Singapore's position as a global business and info communications hub."
"The completion of the SE-ME-WE 5 project is a landmark system upgrade for all data users worldwide. This system facilitates a new age of digital transformation and innovation, catalyzing greater economic activities, trade and growth across three continents," noted Linette Lee, Chairperson, SEA-ME-WE 5 Consortium Management Committee. "I would like to thank all the members of the consortium for their unstinting support and commitment toward this project. Together, we collaborated across different time zones and overcame numerous challenges to achieve the complex integration of technologies as promised and on time."
Members of the SEA-ME-WE 5 Cable consortium include:
Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), China Mobile International (CMI), China Telecom Global (CTG), China United Network Communications Group Company Limited (CU), Djibouti Telecom (DT), Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (du), Myanmar Post and Telecom (MPT), Ooredoo, Orange, PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (Telin), Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (Singtel), Sparkle, Sri Lanka Telecom PLC (SLT), Telecom Egypt (TE), Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM), TeleYemen, Turk Telekom International (TTI) and Trans World Associates (Pvt) Limited Pakistan (TWA).