The Philippines’ largest fully integrated telco PLDT will continue to expand its international cable network as the initial phase of cable construction of the Asia Direct Cable (ADC) begins in Batangas, just months after the successful launch of the Jupiter cable system in July 2022. The ADC will strongly bolster PLDT’s mission to make the Philippines the next hyperscaler destination in Asia-Pacific that has an ecosystem of connected digital infrastructures such as data centers, subsea cables, domestic fiber network, 5G, cloud, and IOT.
The construction of the 9,400-kilometer subsea cable will commence in the Philippines, and target completion of all landing links will be by the end of 2023. Submarine fiber optic cables are among the most critical components of the internet’s infrastructure, as they serve as the global backbone connecting countries while carrying massive amounts of data that enable digital trade across the globe. When completed, ADC will link seven international cable landing points across East and Southeast Asia from Batangas, Philippines to Tuas, Singapore; Chung Hom Kok, Hong Kong; Maruyama, Japan; Quy Nhon, Vietnam; Sri Racha, Thailand; and Shantou, China.
The upcoming activation of ADC and Apricot cable systems will increase to 19 international submarine cable systems of PLDT and once fully equipped will expand the current international network capacity of 60 Tbps to over 130 Tbps.
The cable system will also feature a minimum of 200G DWDM system per wavelength design, which will significantly expand PLDT’s network bandwidth going in and out of the country. Once fully equipped, this will provide PLDT with an additional international network capacity of at least 36Tbps for faster delivery of hyperscale data across East and Southeast Asia.
ADC is a global consortium that comprises leading communications and technology companies, including PLDT, China Telecom, China Unicom, National Telecom, Singtel, SoftBank Corp., Tata Communications and Viettel G.
(Source: PLDT)
