A new 17-member consortium-backed trans-Pacific optical fibre submarine cable system linking Southeast Asia and the U.S. has been launched to:

1. Complement existing high bandwidth cable systems in the region, such as the APCN2 and the Japan-US Cable Network.
2. Extend capacity to other locations in North East and South East Asia, India, Australia, Africa and Europe, by providing a high degree of inter-connectivity with existing and planned high bandwidth systems.
3. Provide much-needed diversity against traditional routes to the U.S. by avoiding the volatile and hazardous Pacific Ring, thus mitigating the effects of natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis that have previously damaged submarine cable systems, resulting in major disruptions to international Internet links (e.g. the 7.1-magnitude earthquake off Taiwan in December 2006 caused major damage to international underwater cable links and took out almost all cable systems in the region).

The Asia-America Gateway (AAG), costing around $500 million, will span 20,000 km, provide minimum capacity of 1.28 Tbit/s and up to 1.92 Tbit/s, and directly link Singapore (Branch Unit 1), Malaysia, Thailand (BU2), Brunei (BU3), Vietnam (BU4), Hong Kong, the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast.

Due to be ready for service in 2008, AAG is backed by AiTi of Brunei Darussalam, AT&T, BayanTel, Bharti (India), British Telecom Global Network Services, CAT Telecom (Thailand), ETPI (Philippines), Maxis (Malaysia), PCP (Cambodia), PLDT (Philippines), Saigon Postal Corporation (Vietnam), StarHub (Singapore), Telekom Malaysia, Telstra (Australia), Telecom New Zealand, Viettel (Vietnam) and the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (17).

NB: The organisation of this new cable system is at the moment difficult to unravel; the MoU to develop such a system was originally announced in June 2006, when seven primary signatories were announced: AiTi, CAT Telecom, PLDT (Philippines), Reach (Hong Kong), StarHub (Singapore), Telekom Malaysia and VNPT.

Due to the change in meaning over the past couple of decades of the verb "include" - which used to have a necessary and essential meaning of a non-exclusive list but is now mainly used to provide exclusive lists - it is difficult to tell whether other backers were involved.

In fact, as is almost invariably the case with such systems, there are the original backers and then there is a process of accretion with new telcos signing up as the system develops. As a result the agreements underpinning the system are probably in a constant state of evolution.

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