Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) has signed an agreement to participate in a multilateral project to lay an undersea cable connecting several countries in Asia in a bid to increase its international presence, the company announced yesterday.
The 12,000km-long Apricot subsea cable system that is to feature state-of-the-art transmission technology would connect Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Guam, the company said.
Scheduled to be launched in 2024, the Apricot cable system would have a capacity of more than 190 terabits per second to meet growing demand for access to 5G mobile broadband networks, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, cloud services and videoconferencing.
Photo courtesy of Chunghwa Telecom Co
The high-capacity undersea cable would bring high-speed, reliable Internet to Taiwan as it enters the 5G era, and is expected to lay the cornerstone for advancing Chunghwa Telecom’s cross-border telecom cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region and enhance Taiwan’s status in the region.
To improve Taiwan’s global Internet security, Chunghwa Telecom has been bolstering its links with neighboring countries and important telecom markets in the region by participating in several international undersea cable projects.
It has invested in the construction of the Asia-Pacific Gateway (APG) and the New Cross Pacific submarine cable networks, which are both landed at Yilan County’s Toucheng Township (頭城).
It is also participating in the construction of the Southeast Asia-Japan 2 (SJC2) undersea cable from New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) and Pingtung County’s Fangshan Township (枋山) to enhance Taiwan’s national network security. The SJC2 cable is expected to be completed next year.
The Apricot cable features a new router that could link with the APG and SJC2 cables through routers in Hong Kong, Vietnam and Thailand, and form a more comprehensive international undersea network in Southeast Asia, said Wu Hsueh-lan (吳學蘭), president of Chunghwa Telecom’s international business group.
Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc yesterday announced their participation in the construction of the Apricot subsea cable, which is set to enhance the flexibility of their digital services and improve Internet connectivity across the Asia-Pacific region.
Apricot is Google’s latest investment in the global submarine cable area. The company has invested in 18 undersea cables, 27 cloud regions and 82 cloud zones.
Facebook in March announced two new trans-Pacific subsea cables connecting Singapore to the US west coast — Bifrost and Echo — with Google participating in the latter.
Google said in a blog post that the Echo and Apricot cables are complementary submarine systems, and would improve the resilience of Google Cloud and the company’s other digital services.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
BIG BUCKS: Chairman Wei is expected to receive NT$34.12 million on a proposed NT$5 cash dividend plan, while the National Development Fund would get NT$8.27 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday announced that its board of directors approved US$15.25 billion in capital appropriations for long-term expansion to meet growing demand. The funds are to be used for installing advanced technology and packaging capacity, expanding mature and specialty technology, and constructing fabs with facility systems, TSMC said in a statement. The board also approved a proposal to distribute a NT$5 cash dividend per share, based on first-quarter earnings per share of NT$13.94, it said. That surpasses the NT$4.50 dividend for the fourth quarter of last year. TSMC has said that while it is eager
‘IMMENSE SWAY’: The top 50 companies, based on market cap, shape everything from technology to consumer trends, advisory firm Visual Capitalist said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was ranked the 10th-most valuable company globally this year, market information advisory firm Visual Capitalist said. TSMC sat on a market cap of about US$915 billion as of Monday last week, making it the 10th-most valuable company in the world and No. 1 in Asia, the publisher said in its “50 Most Valuable Companies in the World” list. Visual Capitalist described TSMC as the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry operator that rolls out chips for major tech names such as US consumer electronics brand Apple Inc, and artificial intelligence (AI) chip designers Nvidia Corp and Advanced
Pegatron Corp (和碩), an iPhone assembler for Apple Inc, is to spend NT$5.64 billion (US$186.82 million) to acquire HTC Corp’s (宏達電) factories in Taoyuan and invest NT$578.57 million in its India subsidiary to expand manufacturing capacity, after its board approved the plans on Wednesday. The Taoyuan factories would expand production of consumer electronics, and communication and computing devices, while the India investment would boost production of communications devices and possibly automotive electronics later, a Pegatron official told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday. Pegatron expects to complete the Taoyuan factory transaction in the third quarter, said the official, who declined to be
RSS