In anticipation of a regional Internet explosion, Singapore Telecom announced yesterday it would begin rolling out a US$2 billion undersea fiber optic cable. Aimed at tapping the booming wholesale telecommunications business, the broadband network will connect seven Asian markets together, including Taiwan.
Dubbed the C2C Cable Network, the 17,000km fiber optic network, the largest network in Asia, will link Taiwan to China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines via a system that can handle up to 90 million phone conversations at once.
New Century Infocomm (
"The C2C Cable Network will meet the booming demand for bandwidth in this region as use of the Internet continues to increase exponentially," said Hoh Wing Chee, SingTel's vice president of international networks.
The C2C network is expected to begin carrying traffic in the third quarter of next year, and will provide connectivity not just from country to country (shore to shore), but also city to city. This method ensures the fastest connection times for users, fiber optic direct to the city.
But to take that speed to the "last mile," governments in Asia need to improve national fiber optic cable infrastructure. The "last mile" refers to the high speed, and high cost connection to a desktop. Connecting a city with one thick cable is much less expensive than spreading cable, Web-like, to each office and home throughout a city.
Carl Nicolai, manager of Internet Service Provider (ISP) Transcend, pointed out that if a fiber optic cable is attached to a regular phone line or other slow speed wire at any point, the speed advantage is lost.
Taiwan has been building on its fiber optic line to keep pace with Singapore, the first country in Asia to connect its citizens to such a high-speed line.
According to Nicolai, fiber optic cable equals speed, information moves in gigabytes and "a gigabyte is an incredible amount of bandwidth."
For example, a full-length feature film downloaded on high-speed broadband would take seconds, while on a current modem or high-speed wireless connection it might take days, according to Nicolai.
According to Vivian Wang, spokesperson for the Ministry of Transportation and Communication's Directorate General of Telecommunications (交通部電信局), Taiwan is building its new broadband network through privatizing the telecom market and using government funds.
Taiwan made a move towards liberalizing the telecom market earlier this year by issuing fixed-line network licenses to three companies, including New Century Infocomm, who will compete with state-run Chunghwa Telecom (
According to Wang, the government has also empowered Chunghwa to expand its broadband network throughout Taiwan, even rural areas unlikely to bring profits from the service. Wang said 55 percent of private homes in Taiwan currently have access to fiber optic broadband cable, while most offices and schools have been plugged into the growing network.
What stifles the growth of broadband networks is the expense of fiber optic cable line. During a recent visit to Taiwan, US Senator John Rockefeller said governments have to take on those costs and ensure that "not some of the people, but all of the people" are hooked up with broadband.
He pointed out that the sheer speed of broadband connections will create a much different Internet than that in existence today, one able to carry TV, video conferences and other services people have yet to dream up.
Those not connected to this new high-speed Internet risk falling so far behind that, according to Rockefeller, "their disadvantages will be permanent and potentially fatal."
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