Chunghwa Telecom invests in Cross-Asia undersea cable.

Taipei, June 16, 2009 (CENS)--Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd., Taiwan AEs No.1 telecom carrier, recently signed an agreement to join eight other Asian peers to lay an undersea telephone cable that will connect major economies the Asia-Pacific.

The cable project, dubbed the Asia-Pacific Gateway (APG), calls for US$600 million in investment, with Chunghwa to contribute US$40 million.

The 8,000-kilometer cable, designed to handle four terabits per second, will reach Taiwan, China, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore by skirting seismically active areas.

The APG is launched based on the bright outlook of the Asian economy. Industry watchers estimated that the APG, when completed in 2011, will offer wider broadband connection between Taiwan and China. APG's investors include China Telecom, China Unicom, Nippon Telegraph & Telephone (NTT), Korea Telecom, Philippine Long Distance Telephone, Vietnam Post & Telecommunications, and Telecom Malaysia. Industry watchers pointed out that the APG would not be the first undersea cable project that Chunghwa has worked on with the mainland's telecom carriers. Early this month, Chunghwa and China Telecom announced a joint laying of a submarine telephone cable to connect Taiwan's outlaying island of Kinmen with the mainland's coastal city of Xiamen. ((KL)) (GE)