Asian telcos in $500 mln Asia-U.S. cable project
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PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia, April 27 (Reuters) - Asian phone companies unveiled plans on Friday to build a $500 million undersea cable between Southeast Asia and the United States to speed up Internet connections in the region.

Existing telecoms cables connecting Asia and North America are nearing full capacity while some of the oldest will need to be retired soon, Malaysia's communications minister said in announcing the project, to be led by Telekom Malaysia .

The 20,000-kilometre (12,400-mile), fibre-optic cable system would also take a different route from many existing cables to avoid quake-prone areas and a repeat of the disruption to Asian Web access caused by a tremor off Taiwan four months ago.

"The low-risk route was designed to avoid the volatile and hazardous Pacific ring," Communications Minister Lim Keng Yaik said, referring to the ring of sub-sea volcanoes and quake zones around the Pacific Ocean.

Telekom Malaysia said cable construction would begin immediately and that, when completed, it would directly link seven Asian countries -- Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, the Philippines and Hong Kong -- with the United States.

The cable network would begin carrying commercial traffic by December 2008.

"The undersea cable will provide a timely increase in both the capacity and diversity of Internet links between Asia and the U.S., bearing in mind the disruption caused by the recent Taiwan earthquake late last year," Telekom Chief Executive Abdul Wahid Omar said in a statement.

"When it begins operations, Internet users can look forward to faster and more relibable international connectivity."

The cable consortium comprises 17 firms, mostly from Asia.

They include AT&T Inc. , India's Bharti Airtel , British Telecom Global Network Services , Thailand's CAT Telecom, Indonesia's Indosat , Philippines Long Distance Telephone Co , Singapore's StarHub , Australia's Telstra , Telecom New Zealand and the Vietnam Post & Telecommunications Group.

The consortium had awarded the cable construction contract to Alcatel Submarine Network, a unit of France's Alcatel-Lucent , and to Japan's NEC Corp .

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