A leading communications solutions provider, VSNL, announced that it is proceeding with the construction of the TGN-Intra Asia cable system, which will be built by Tyco Telecommunications Inc. The cable is a new four fiber pair cable system, linking Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan with an additional connection to the Philippines, and possibly Vietnam. This cable will provide faster connection speeds up to 3.8 Tbit/s of capacity to the Asia-Pacific market.

"This is the first and only cable system that provides a direct fiber link between Singapore and Japan," said Vinod Kumar, President, VSNL. The cable will allow VSNL's international customers doing business in and with the region to obtain increased bandwidth, additional route diversity and expansive geographical reach. The cable will provide a direct connection from Singapore to VSNL's Transpacific Network in Japan , avoiding any other landing points and connecting to the TGN-Pacific cable system directly at the landing station.

The new cable will be serving "all industries that require robust telecommunications services. It will provide additional diversity and capacity ensuring that the region continues to be well served from telecoms, Internet, and IT perspective" says Byron Clatterbuck, VP, global carrier solutions, VSNL. He also says: "the cable offers the most direct routing between Singapore and Tokyo, and between Hong Kong and Tokyo - improving latency and diversity. It will also provide a new landing into the Philippines, vital for it's growing BPO [business process outsourcing] and call centre industries; and will be the first new cable into Vietnam since SMW3 (i.e. the mid 1990s) supporting their rapidly growing economy and inward investment levels in many industries. Finally, from VSNL's perspective it will enable us to offer wholly "on-net" capacity from any city in India through Asia all the way to L.A., Seattle and San Francisco in the US, vastly improving our ability to support growing demand from and to our home market."