July 8, 2012

Facebook has taken a stake in a US$450 million project to link South Asian countries with an undersea cable. The project is expected to be ready some time in 2014.

The Asia Pacific Gateway will run from Malaysia to South Korea and Japan, with branches to mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam, according to a July 3 filing to Malaysian stock market regulators by Time Dotcom (TdC), another of the partners in the consortium behind the project.

The cable will have a total design capacity of 54.8 terabits per second using 40Gbps channels, but it will be possible to upgrade it to 100Gbps per channel when the technology becomes available, TdC said in the filing.

The entire project is expected to cost approximately $450 million, and each of the 12 members of the consortium will have a percentage ownership of the asset proportionate to its investment in the project. Any specifics on investment are not disclosed.

The other partners in the consortium, according to TdC, are China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom; Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom; Korean network operators KT & LG Uplus; NTT Communications of Japan; StarHub of Singapore; Viettel Group and the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group.

The cable will make it possible for Facebook to provide a better user experience for a greater number of users in countries like India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore.