Broadband provider Converge ICT Solutions announced on Thursday that the South-East Asia Hainan-Hong Kong Express Cable System (SEA-H2X) subsea cable has officially landed in the Philippines.
According to a statement from Converge ICT, the Philippines branch of SEA-H2X is now connected in Bauang, La Union, on the island of Luzon. The 5,000-km SEA H2X has a design capacity of 160 Tbps and connects Hainan, China, and Hong Kong SAR with the Philippines, Thailand, East Malaysia and Singapore, with options to extend to Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and the Malaysian peninsula.
Converge CEO Denis Uy said in the statement that the system will help boost the country’s intra-Asia connectivity and serve its bandwidth needs for the next 10 to 15 years.
“Ultimately, it is intended to provide superior connectivity to subscribers and businesses in the Philippines; it is seen to benefit institutions seen as large consumers of bandwidth such as outsourcing and offshore industry, including major contact centres, business process outsourcing providers, global financial institutions and a host of other multinationals,” he said.
Earlier this year, Uy and Converge chief operations officer Jesus Romero told the media that completion of the SEA-H2X system might be delayed to early next year due to rough weather and problems with acquiring permits from Indonesia. In any event, SEA-H2X is currently expected to be ready for service no later than the first quarter of 2025.
Converge is a consortium partner in SEA H2X, along with China Mobile International, China Unicom Global, and PP Telecom. China’s HMN Technologies is building the system.