Darrin Webb, who oversees our international subsea cable network, looks at Telstra’s latest developments that are helping connect Australia with our international business partners.

One of the reasons the internet is such a powerful and transformative technology is that it’s global. You can access information, people and content from around the world, without ever having to leave the building.

Telstra is one of the leaders in transporting data and connecting millions of consumers and businesses around the world at the speed of light. We currently own and operate the largest intra-Asia submarine cable network with up to 30 per cent of the active capacity. In fact, if you laid all our submarine cables end to end they would stretch around the world more than nine times.

But we aren’t stopping there. As the number and variety of digital devices continues to explode, so too does the demand for the international networks needed to keep them connected. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Asia, which is now home to almost half the world’s internet consumers and where on average around 10 new mobile broadband subscriptions are turned on every second.

That’s why we have announced a series of additions to our global network.

Expanding our reach

To begin with, we’re now offering services on the Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) cable, which consists of three fibre pairs stretching 8,000 kilometres from Singapore to the United Arab Emirates, landing at Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka and Oman along the way.

We’ve also secured capacity on the new trans-pacific FASTER cable system which runs from Japan to the West Coast of the United States.

We’ve launched our new Taiwan overland fibre route connecting Taipei, Kaohsiung and Hong Kong. There are already a lot of cables in that region, but this new path is unique in that it will bypass the Luzon Strait, which is a stretch of water between Taiwan and the Philippines where damaging natural disasters are common.

Also in Asia, we’ve introduced a new highly resilient fibre ring network in South Korea which brings new options and improved network resilience both within Korea and for connecting Korea with the world.

There is some construction in the works too. Building of the new Trans-Tasman (TGA) route from Australia to New Zealand has begun and we are a consortium partner in that cable. We also recently announced we had signed an MOU with several parties to explore a new APX-West cable connecting Singapore with Perth in Australia.

The data-driven world

Finally we haven’t forgotten our existing infrastructure. We’re investing in enhancing our EAC-C2C cable, increasing capacity on the fibre pairs to ten times their original design and extending the life of this cable by seven years until at least 2035.

At more than 36,000 km connecting Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Singapore, the EAC-C2C is the largest privately owned and operated cable in Asia. This investment will underpin services on this important cable for the long-term which provides more certainty and improved reliability for our customers.

While we’re excited about these additions to our networks, we are also looking forward to further enhancement in the next year. In the beginning of 2017, we will also have a footprint in Indo-China through additional capacity on the Asia Africa Europe-1 (AAE-1) cable.

As the online world becomes increasingly central to our work lives, the reach, speed and reliability of the networks that transport data around the world has never been so pivotal. We’re focused on reinforcing our network leadership position in Asia to give our customers access to the data they want, at the volume they need, when they want it.

This article was originally published on Telstra Exchange.