FPT plans $87M undersea cable

Its subsidiary FPT Telecom will present the plan to shareholders for approval at its annual general meeting Tuesday.

The company will invest 30% of the cost from its own resources and borrow the rest from banks.

It said it expects to recoup the investment in eight years and 10 months.

In illustration of FPT’s planned cable to connect Vietnam with the Asia Link Cable (ALC). Map by Submarine Cable Map. Illustration and notes by VnExpress/Dat Nguyen

The 6,000-kilometer Asia Link Cable links Hong Kong, mainland China, the Philippines, Brunei, and Singapore and has a capacity of 18 terabits per second.

FPT Telecom will set up a connecting station in Da Nang City.

The company’s CEO, Nguyen Van Khoa, had said earlier this month that investing in a undersea cable would be the main priority for the company this year, and it would give users a “different” experience.

Vietnam’s five undersea cables regularly face issues, and fixing them often takes a long time as they pass through other countries’ territories.

State-owned telecom firm Viettel is also set to lay an undersea cable this or next year. To cost $290 million, Asia Direct Cables will run 9,800 kilometers and have a capacity of more than 140 tbps.

It will have almost three times the capacity of the Asia Pacific Gateway (54.8 tbps) which Vietnamese telecom firms are using.

Next year another state-owned telecom firm, VNPT, plans to install the SJC2 cable with a capacity of 18 tbps.