NTT Global Data Centers announced yesterday that its MIST subsea cable has landed in Mumbai, India.
MIST, aka the Myanmar/Malaysia India Singapore Transit cable system, has a total length of 8,100km and connects Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and as of yesterday, Mumbai and Chennai in India.
The company has also constructed landing stations in Mumbai and Chennai as part of its commitment to providing an end-to-end carrier-neutral network.
According to a LinkedIn post by NTT, the MIST cable will have one of the largest bandwiths of those in the Asia-pacific region, with the ability to carry ~200Tbs of capacity under 12 fiber pairs. The system was valued at $400m upon construction.
The subsea cable system was first announced in October 2019, with construction commencing in December of that year, and is part of a joint venture between NTT, the Fund Corporation for the Overseas Development of Japan’s ICT and the Postal Service, and WEN Capital Pte Ltd called Orient Link.
It is being constructed by NEC Corporation. Once fully deployed, the cable is expected to reach 11,000km and have the capacity for future expansion.
NTT has not provided an expected completion date for the system.
Keppel and Converge break ground on Philippines landing station
In other subsea-cable news, Keppel T&T and Converge ICT Solutions have broken on the Converge-Bifrost Cable Landing Station in Davao, the Philippines.
The Converge-Bifrost Cable was first announced in March 2021 by Meta (then known as Facebook). Meta invested in two transpacific subsea cables to connect North America with Indonesia and Singapore, both taking a new route across the Java Sea: Bifrost and Echo. Bifrost is expected to be completed by 2024.
The groundbreaking ceremony was also attended by Converge CEO and co-founder Dennis Anthony Uy and Converge president and co-found Grace Uy.
In a LinkedIn post, Thomas Pang, CEO of Keppel said: “We are honored to have former President DU30 (Rodrigo Duterte) as our Guest of Honour.”
Rodrigo Duterte is a controversial figure. During his presidency, DU30 took a hard stance on the illegal drug trade. He has confirmed that he personally killed criminal suspects while the Mayor of Davao and the extrajudicial killings committed by the Davao Death Squad resulted in an International Criminal court preliminary investigation into his ‘drug war’ in 2018, resulting in him withdrawing from the Philippines body.
Keppel and Converge also visited President BBM (Bongbong Marcos, current President) of the Philippines to discuss the new cable system.
In another LinkedIn post, Pang said: “Together with Dennis Uy, CEO of Converge ICT, we visited President BBM of the Philippines to talk about the significance of the nation connecting to Bifrost cable system. Combined with Converge’s terrestrial network, this will allow the Philippines to be connected to the world with the fastest & highest capacity connectivity in order to build a digital economy.”