January 23, 2024 - Telstra International and Trans Pacific Networks (TPN) have partnered on the Echo cable, the first subsea cable to directly connect the US to Singapore, creating a new route and delivering vital connectivity in the Trans-Pacific.
Echo’s subsea system is an express route connecting California, Jakarta, Singapore, and Guam.
Partially funded by the US International Development Finance Corporation, the Echo subsea cable system creates a new path and offers low latency, high-speed, resilient network infrastructure connecting South Asia to the US.
The first Echo segments (Guam-US) will launch in mid-2024, with the remaining segments in 2025.
Telstra will become TPN’s operating partner to provide secure, long-term stability on an efficient route. In addition, Telstra will be delivering cable landing station services for Echo in Singapore and the Network Operations Centre services. XL Axiata is landing the cable in Indonesia.
“The Trans-Pacific is a critical connection point to reach the US, and the geography of these regions means they will rely on new submarine cable routes like Echo for international connectivity,” TPN CFO Aaron Knapik said.
Telstra International CEO Roary Stasko said the geographical area the new cable would be built in was one of the more challenging regions globally in terms of regulation as well as subsea cable cuts.
“We’re accelerating growth in our international digital infrastructure with investments in subsea fibre capacity on unique, diverse routes - helping to move more traffic around the world and strengthening connections from Asia to the US. Echo’s cable system has the ability to allow other countries to take advantage of its redundancy,” Stasko said.
“In addition, we’ve recently added 3Tbps of capacity through the SEA-US cable connecting US mainland to Hawaii, Guam and the Philippines which complements our existing Trans-Pacific cables like AAG, Unity, Faster, NCP and Jupiter.”
