1. New Trans-Pacific Cable Systems and Potential Opportunities
George McLaughlin, Vice-Chair, APAN
CCIRN meeting, Xi’An 26th August 2007

2. Taiwan Earthquake – 26 December 2006
Large earthquake (Richter 7.1) hit Luzon Strait on 26 Dec 2006, with multiple aftershocks (Richter 6.9, 5.6, 5.5, 5.4)
Seven of the nine cable systems passing through the straight were severed
Part of Asia Netcom’s EAC and Guam-Philippines were the only systems that remained in service
Huge financial losses to businesses from being off-air
Took >six weeks to repair all earthquake-damaged cables

3. Network Outages – first 3 days of Taiwan Quake
Courtesy: Todd Underwood, Renesys Corp

4. Network Outages by country – first 3 days of Taiwan Quake
Courtesy: Todd Underwood, Renesys Corp

5. Lessons from the Taiwan Earthquake
Dramatically showed the fragility of the global Internet
Local events can have far-reaching impact
Physical failures can take considerable time to remedy
Asia is particularly vulnerable
Resilience and redundancy are even higher on everyone’s agenda
Several new regional cable systems are now under construction
Trans-Pacific Express (US-China)
FLAG NGN (Intra-Asia, Intra-Africa, Mediterranean, trans-Pacific
IMEWE/TIC (Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Europe)
East Asia Crossing Extension (see later)
Asia-America Gateway (see later)

6. East Asia Crossing Note – now likely to be Guam only, not Hawaii
Transpacific ring system connecting South East Asia directly to the US
Configuration: Design capacity 2.56Tbps; initial capacity 200Gbps; 4 fiber pair, DWDM
RFS: July 2008

7. Asia America Gateway
Philippines
Thailand
Brunei
Singapore
Hawaii
United States
Malaysia
Vietnam
Hong Kong
Guam
(Sri Racha)
(Mersing)
(Changi)
(Vung Tau)
(Tungku)
(Lantau)
(La Union)
(Tanguisson)
(Keawaula)
(San Luis Obispo)
BU1
BU2
BU3
BU4
BU5
Design Capacity of 1.92 Tbps with direct connectivity between Asia & the US with landings in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Philippines, Guam, Hawaii and US Mainland.
A network spanning about 19,000 kilometers and will initially cater for 480 Gbit/s of capacity with at least 2 fiber pairs, DWDM
RFS Q4 2008

8. Asia America Gateway
Europe
Philippines
Thailand
Brunei
Singapore
Hawaii
Malaysia
Vietnam
Hong
Kong
Guam
North Asia
China
India
Africa
Middle
East US
MAINLAND
Australia
Japan
Provision for extensions to North Asia, South Asia, Australia, Africa, Middle East and Europe

9. Investment partners in Asia America Gateway
AT&T (USA) Bharti AirTel (India) Government of Brunei Darussalam (Brunei) British Telecom Global Network Services (UK) CAT Telekom (Thailand) Eastern Telecom (Philippines) Indosat (Indonesia) Pacific Communications (Cambodia) Philippines Long Distance Telephone Company (Philippines) PT Telkom (Indonesia) Saigon Postal Corporation (Vietnam) StarHub (Singapore) Telekom Malaysia (Malaysia) Telstra (Australia) Telecom New Zealand International (New Zealand) Viettel (Vietnam) and Vietnam Post & Telecommunications Group (Vietnam)

10. Some opportunities have come and gone
Asia America Gateway is funded by investment partners
An opportunity arose for the R&E sector to become an investment partner, but we couldn’t (collectively or individually) bring this off in time
Government funding agencies use procurement processes to acquire defined services for a period of time, rather than investment stakes to secure part of an asset for the lifetime of the asset
Investment stake is not an IRU (which these days is really a long-term lease) but conveys all ownership benefits, eg open access to all cable stations, add-drop in any country, sell IRUs, no restrictions on use, etc)
Minimum investment US$3million (for lifetime stake), plus 3% pa O&M

11. But others are still there
DANTE will go to market in the first half of next year for TEIN3 circuits
Experience to date is that the larger the potential number of circuits, the better the total negotiated deal will be
Plan is to give an Industry Briefing at PTC ( at Hawaii in January just before Techs in Paradise
Given interests in various procurements by Eu and US as well as Asian countries, might there be some synergy in working together on circuit procurement?
To illustrate how global science is evolving, and the need for good engagement, the next slide shows just a smattering of what’s going on in one area of one discipline, in a sub-set of the global activity (come see the eVLBI demo during the afternoon teabreak on Tuesday 28th Aug)

12. Courtesy Paul Boven, JIVE