Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) has announced that it has won the contract to build the cable, which will have six fibre-pairs, with a capacity of 80Tbps, and will be ready for service in 2020.
The companies behind the Hong Kong America (HKA) cable are China Telecom, China Unicom, Facebook, Tata Communications and Telstra – even though Facebook’s services are restricted in China and some US politicians are becoming wary of Chinese carriers.
They announced HKA at this week’s PTC conference in Hawaii. It will compete with the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN), which will also run from Hong Kong to California. Facebook and Google are partners in PLCN, which is being built by TE SubCom. Telstra is involved with both projects.
ASN president Philippe Piron said: “The trust placed upon us by the HKA consortium validates our position as a key player for submarine network infrastructures in the Asia-Pacific region and the reinforcement of our local presence.”
The cable “provides a strong platform to further demonstrate our commitment in project management and in the development of local relationships to support operators and content providers for their network and capacity expansion strategies”, he added.
