The SEA-US cable is the latest of numerous subsea launches to be announced in 2014, and will see Telin, Globe Telecom, RAM Telecom International (RTI), Hawaiian Telecom, Teleguam Holdings (GTA), GTI Corporation and Telkom USA form a consortium, with NEC Corporation as the system supplier.
Earlier this month, NEC was also selected by the FASTER cable consortium to build a new trans-Pacific cable linking the west coast of the US to two landing stations in Japan.
SEA-US will link five areas and territories, including Manado in Indonesia, Davao in the Philippines, Piti in Guam, Oahu in Hawaii and LA in the US, spanning 15,000km. The route is designed to avoid earthquake-prone areas of east Asia.
“The SEA-US project is connected seamlessly with Telkom’s domestic backbone and the cable will provide unmatched latency from Indonesia to the United States,” said Syarif Syarial Ahmad, president director of Telin.
“The project will also support Indonesia’s strong economic growth and its government’s Master Plan for Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesia's Economic Development (MP3EI). We began pursuing SEA-US in 2013 and are very proud to be a part of this historic project that marks the first gateway from the east part of Indonesia to the world,” he added.
The cable is due to complete in Q4 2016, and will cost an estimated $250 million, with an additional 20Tbps of capacity to connect Indonesia, Philippines and the US with 100Gbps technology.
“The SEA-US cable will provide much-needed Asia-US connectivity and will be the fastest cable connecting south east Asia with the US,” added Russ Matulich, CEO at RTI.
“It provides essential route diversity from the north Pacific and taps into the strong economic growth of more than 1.5 billion businesses and consumers who are internet savvy and data hungry."
