Listed PLDT Inc. has joined a consortium that is set to establish a 9,400-kilometer undersea cable network linking six Asian countries. In a filing on Thursday, the Pangilinan-led telecommunications giant said the Asia Direct Cable (ADC) consortium would build a “high performance” submarine cable to connect the Philippines, China (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Guangdong province), Japan, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Other members of the group are CAT, China Telecom, China Unicom, Singtel, SoftBank Corp., Tata Communications and Viettel. The ADC cable system, which is eyed for completion by the last quarter of 2022, is expected to strengthen PLDT’s international network, as it would provide additional capacity for internet and digital services. According to PLDT, the submarine cable will have multiple pairs of high-capacity optical fibers and is designed to carry more than 140 terabits per second of traffic.

Source: Manila Times June 12, 2020 16:45 UTC