KT in cable consortium

Korean telecom giant KT said yesterday that it has joined with telecom companies in Asia to build high-speed submarine communications cables connecting 11 areas in nine Asian countries.

For the Asia Pacific Gateway project, KT joined an international consortium of 14 telecom companies, including NTT Communications in Japan and Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan, to build fast-speed underwater optic fiber cables by 2014.

The submarine cables stretching 100,000 kilometers (62,000 miles) and linking Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Korea and Japan, will begin commercial service in early 2014, KT said.

The cables will be able to transmit data at a speed of up to 38.4 Tera bits per second, the fastest rate for underwater communications cables, the Korean firm said.