ASE will connect Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia, with Hong Kong to be added in the first quarter of 2013. It will connect directly to the Serangoon Data Centre in Singapore and later to NTT’s under construction Hong Kong Financial Data Centre.
The submarine cable, which has been designed to withstand earthquake and typhoon damage, will have a total carrying capacity exceeding 15Tbps, and will initially incorporate 40Gbps optical technology with a 100Gbps upgrade to follow later.
NTT plans to offer global leased line service combining ASE’s low latency routes into its existing offering, including the PC-1 cable between Tokyo and Chicago. It is expected that superior service between the US and Asia will be attractive to financial enterprises such as high frequency trading firms.
The carrier will utilise the Japan to Singapore section of ASE in particular as it offers less than 65 milliseconds latency, an advantage of more than 3 milliseconds over competing cables.
NTT said that ASE will be incorporated into the backbone of its Tier 1 global IP network this month, and will do the same for its cloud-based network service in the near future.
Other ASE investors include Telekom Malaysia, Philippine carrier PLDT and Singapore’s StarHub.
