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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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)

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

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 (www.ptc.org) 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)

Courtesy Paul Boven, JIVE