Telstra invests in US-HK subsea route

Telstra has invested in two new subsea cable systems connecting the US west coast with Hong Kong.

The telco said it would “invest in a half fibre pair” on the new Hong Kong Americas (HKA) cable, which is targeting a go-live in 2020.

It also said it would invest in “the equivalent of 6Tbps” of capacity on the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) project, which is expected to be completed in 2019.

“The two cables will deliver lower latency due to being more direct routes between the US and Asia than the current Asia-America Gateway (AAG) on which Telstra operates the most active capacity today,” the carrier’s group managing director of global services and international David Burns said in a statement.

“Our investment in capacity on PLCN and HKA will also provide our customers with greater resiliency due to bypassing areas prone to natural disasters and offering two direct, alternative paths to the AAG cable which connects South East Asia to the US west coast via Hong Kong, Guam and Hawaii.”

Burns said the US-Hong Kong route was “one of the fastest growing routes in the world for capacity demand”.