The consortium behind the SEA-ME-WE 5 subsea cable have revealed that construction of the 20,000km cable has commenced.
The cable, which will connect to 17 countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Western Europe, is now scheduled to commence operation in the second quarter of 2016.
Alcatel Submarine Networks and NEC have been contracted to provide and construct the cable system. The three fiber pair cable will have a design capacity of at least 24Tbps.
The cable will connect or branch to Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Oman, UAE, Yemen, Djibouti, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Italy and France.
Fifteen operators teamed up in March to commission the SEA-ME-WE 5 cable. These include SingTel, China Unicom and the international arms of China Telecom, China Mobile and Indonesia's PT Telkom.
The other founding members were Sri Lanka Telecom, TOT, TeleYemen, Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company (BSCCL), Telekom Malaysia, Myanmar Post and Telecom, du, Orange, Saudi Telecom Company and Telecom Italia Sparkle.
According to the most recent list of participants, TeleYemen is no longer involved in the consortium.