By Globe Telecom

Globe Telecom continues to evolve to better serve its over 29 million subscribers, as well as the Philippines’ leading small, medium and large enterprises, after it has made investments on five international submarine cable systems connecting the Philippines to the world.

Globe has invested more than US$ 120-million to strengthen its cable system diversity and international network connectivity in order to provide seamless and uninterrupted service to its customers wherever they are. The company has also allocated over US$80-million for support infrastructure to ensure stability and reliability.

“Given our diverse portfolio of cable systems and network paths, our subscribers can enjoy consistent and reliable connections supported by our fully-redundant networks,” said Gil Genio, Head for Business and International Markets of Globe. “With our submarine cable investments, we are more enabled to execute faster restoration time during service disruptions caused by weather disturbances, when services become severely affected.”

Among the latest cable links of Globe are the Unity Cable System that was activated in the third quarter of 2010 and the Tata Global Network-Intra Asia Cable System (TGN-IA), which started serving the company’s enterprise customers in 2009. The Unity Cable System is a Trans-Pacific cable that runs a span of 9,620 kilometers between Japan and the U.S. It has one of the lowest latencies across the Pacific and provides direct connections for internet traffic between Asia and the U.S. It has 960Gbps or a total of 96 10G wavelengths capacity making more bandwidth available to businesses.

TGN-IA is a direct, point-to-point and express optical fiber submarine cable with an aggregate bandwidth of 3.84 terabits per second and short round-trip-delay time. It directly links the Philippines to Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Vietnam, with onward connectivity to Guam and mainland U.S., providing alternative access around Asia and a more direct route to the U.S. TGN-IA is strategically located far from all existing international cable landing stations, and is deliberately designed to keep out of the Pacific Ring of Fire and areas with high seismic activity such as Taiwan.

Unity and TGN-IA complement other Globe investments such as the TGN-Pacific Cable, Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2), and City to City (C2C) cable network systems. Other submarine cable systems utilized by Globe are APCN1, South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe Cable Network 3 and East Asia Crossing (EAC).

The stability of the Globe networks supported by the multiple submarine cable systems was put to test during the recent earthquake in Japan which had very minimal impact to its customers. Globe had solid connectivity to the U.S. through the Unity Cable System and TGN-IA, which provided the capacity needed to reroute affected circuits. Globe subscribers were able to benefit from the alternative and viable links that were made readily available at the height of service disruptions.

Globe expects to further increase network capacity and resiliency after the Southeast Asia Japan Cable (SJC) System goes online by 2013. The $400-Million SJC boasts of the highest capacity system in the world and uses wavelength transmission technology with design capacity of 17 Terabits per second (Tbps) that could be upgraded to 23 Tbps. SJC will initially link Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines and Japan, with onward connectivity to the U.S.

Globe is the exclusive SJC landing party in the Philippines. Using the SJC system, the company can meet customers’ increasing demand for bandwidth, especially the business processing outsourcing (BPO) firms, providing a faster and better internet experience.

Added Genio, “Network quality is a top priority for Globe. This is the critical backbone that supports quality delivery of our core services. Investing in submarine cable systems give us increased capacity and better network resiliency which definitely matter to our clients. Today, with five major investments of such massive scale, we assure our customers with continuous and superior internet connectivity and voice services.”

The company’s investment in submarine cable systems is part of its network transformation program to enhance coverage worldwide. The major initiative also included the completion of upgrades on its transmission systems, installation of protected fiber connectivity in critical areas in the Philippines and a network modernization project that improved network capacity and quality for mobile and broadband services.

Globe also announced that majority of its 2011 CAPEX amounting to US$500 million will be allocated to build up capacity, as well as modernize and optimize its network infrastructure. The significant investment covers the commercial deployment of the Philippines’ first and biggest 4G mobile network utilizing the global standard HSPA+, which provides subscribers with high speed broadband access with the added convenience of full mobility.

Present during the signing of the landmark agreement that would build the New Southeast Asia Japan Cable System (SJC) are (from left) Francois Sterin (Google), Ernest Cu (Globe), Keiji Ito (KDDI), A.M. Rai (Network i2i, a 100% subsidiary of Bharti Airtel), Hady Hartanto (Telemedia Pacific Inc.), and Gil Genio (Globe).

ABOUT GLOBE TELECOM

Globe Telecom is a premier full-service telecommunications company in the Philippines, serving the needs of consumers and businesses across an entire suite of products and services including mobile, fixed, broadband, data connections, internet and managed services. Its principals are Ayala Corporation and Singapore Telecom who are acknowledged industry leaders in the country and in the region. For more information, visit www.globe.com.ph.