“We are honoured to be a partner in SEA-H2X, which connects major cities such as Hong Kong, China and Singapore, along with Hainan, China, linking to locations in the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand in Southeast Asia," said Dr. Li Feng, chairman and CEO, CMI.
"The SEA-H2X cable will provide high-speed, low-latency, and low-cost data connections for customers in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) region, to further accelerate economic development of its members.”
The 5,000km system will span Hong Kong SAR China, Hainan China, Philippines, Thailand, East Malaysia and Singapore, with options to extend to Vietnam, Cambodia, West Malaysia and Indonesia.
"As an important large-bandwidth submarine system in the region, SEA-H2X will further upgrade connectivity to Hong Kong SAR, Hainan SEZ and Southeast Asia countries, boosting unimpeded trade, communication, financial integration along the route," said Dr. Meng Shusen, chairman and president, CUG.
The consortium is comprised of China Mobile International Limited (CMI), China Unicom Global (CUG), Converge Information and Communications Technology Solutions (Converge) and PPTEL SEA H2X Sdn. Bhd (PPTEL SEA-H2X), has appointed HMN Technologies to build the cable.
“We are pleased to be a partner in this trans-Asia cable that will respond to the booming data traffic between Hong Kong SAR and Southeast Asia. This submarine cable system will boost the connectivity between our two PoPs located in Hong Kong and in Singapore," said Dennis Anthony Uy, CEO and co-founder, Converge.
The Group already has a construction and maintenance agreement and supply contract with HMN Tech, the supply contract has now come into force.
The cable will boast a minimum of 8-fibre pairs between Hong Kong SAR and Singapore, with a design capacity of 160Tbps and is due to become ready-for-service in 2024.
"PPTEL SEA-H2X is transforming the telecoms landscape in Malaysia from our home base in Kuching, where we are launching the first Tier IV Data Centre in the region in Q1 2022, co-located with our new CLS at Santubong," said PPTEL CEO Jonathan Smith.
"Our strategic location allows us to offer new low latency routings between China and Jakarta, via SEA-H2X and Batam Sarawak Internet Cable System, which is also expected to complete in Q1 2022.”
In addition, the system will employ "state-of-the-art optical submarine transmission equipment" as well as an open system model, with the flexibility to choose "best-in-breed" Submarine Line Terminal Equipment (SLTE) from third-party vendors in the future.
Using HMN Tech’s advanced branching unit and reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer will also give SEA-H2X flexibility of electrical power and optical fibre switches across multiple locations.
“We are committed to developing innovative and reliable technologies, and to utilising them in the critical telecom infrastructures, like SEA-H2X," said Mao Shengjiang, CEO, HMN Tech.
"HMN Tech’s start-of-art technology and expert deployment abilities will contribute to the consortium to build a high-speed, large-capacity and low-latency system fast and successfully and to enhance intra-Asian connectivity.”
