Globe Telecom doubles Philippine Internet Bandwitdh

In a lunch event today, Globe Telecom and Tata Communications announced that their new submarine cable system has been activated and carrying traffic to the Philippines.

Called the Tata Global Network - Intra Asia (TGN-IA), the cable system has been in plans since 2006 (even before the Taiwan earthquake that crippled internet in the Philippines).

The cable system now connects Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Japan to the Philippines. The cable networks were designed to avoid the earthquake zones around Taiwan and will offer a total capacity of 3.84 Terabits per second.

Globe’s initial capacity is 50Gbps which effectively doubles the total bandwidth capacity of the Philippines.

Well, what does this mean to regular consumers?

Much less congestion in Globe’s network so subscribers are able to achieve their allocated bandwidth speeds.
Reduced latency for business customers. This is good for VOIP and network gaming. The route between Singapore to Japan will now have the lowest latency in Asia at only 63ms.

Alternative international cable network that will reduce incidents (like connectivity failures and congestions) caused by natural disasters like the Taiwan earthquake of 2006.
The cable landing site is now located at Ballesteros in Cagayan province, away from the usual landing sites in Nasugbu, Batangas. Globe Telecom spent $90 milllion for this project.