In a sign that Facebook is getting even more serious about Asia, the company has invested in an undersea cable system called the Asia Pacific Gateway according to CommsDay. This is a 10,000 km cable that runs from Malaysia to South Korea and Japan that links up other countries along the way. The cable is expected to speed up Internet connection within the Asian region and provide much greater bandwidth to countries connected to the system once the project is completed in 2014. Including other investors, the project has secured $450 million according to the BBC.
This cable system will link Malaysia directly to South Korea and Japan as well as mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Singapore. The network will be administered by Global Transit, a subsidiary of Malaysia’s Time dotCom on behalf of the consortium of companies involved in the project.
In a press release this week, Saiful Husni, CEO of Global Transit said the group’s investment in the APG cable system completes its ASEAN to USA connectivity route.
“Combining TIME’s Malaysia-wide fibre network, Global Transit’s regional network nodes, ownership in the trans-pacific Unity cable, and now the APG system, the TIME Group has a complete land and sea fibre network footprint to capture the high-growth bandwidth demand in Asia.”
Husni added that the cable system will reduce the country’s dependency in Singapore with regards to connecting the country’s infrastructure all the way to the United States and allow 3,400 Gbps connection between Malaysia, South Korea and Japan.
Facebook’s interest in this is clear. According to data from socialbakers, Asia is the network’s second largest region after Europe with 229 million users. Europe is first with 234 million while North America is third with 223 million. Despite recording 229 million users, penetration in Asia is still less than 6%.
Of course, Facebook is officially locked out of China but in India it has only reached 4.25% of the population with 50 million users. Indonesia, the top Southeast Asian country on Facebook has nearly 44 million users which is about 18% of the population.
Indonesia’s connected residents are expected to reach 100 million by 2015, roughly 40% of the population. Unfortunately neither India nor Indonesia are among the countries connected through the Asia Pacific Gateway.
Across the countries that are linked by the project, there are currently 55 million Facebook users, not that many more than Indonesia or India separately. In Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore, Facebook has reached roughly half the population while in Vietnam, Facebook members need to go through hoops to access the network.
Even though the countries linked up in the Gateway represent a small portion of Facebook’s current user base, having ownership in the project allows Facebook to prepare for growth in the region. This project is another step in making the Internet a lot more accessible, affordable, and faster to access in Asia, which are all factors favored by Facebook.
The increase in bandwidth and speed clearly will allow Facebook to be able to deliver its services more effectively to Asia especially if the rumors of a Facebook phone turn out to be true. Asians are addicted to Facebook and for many, Facebook is the internet. A Facebook phone would need a strong backbone support and this investment ensures that it does.
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