Converge may not finish submarine cable projects this year

MANILA, Philippines — Converge ICT Solutions Inc. is seeing some delays in the construction of its international subsea fiber cable networks, which are crucial infrastructure for transmitting data.

Jesus Romero, Converge chief operations officer, told reporters last week they might finish the cable projects by the first quarter of 2025, instead of this year.

“There are certain things you can’t control like weather conditions. But the laying is going on,” he said.

Dennis Uy, co-founder of the Pampanga-based internet service provider, said getting permits to build the submarine fiber cable networks in other countries might also take some time and thus extend the project’s timetable.

Converge has yet to respond to questions about the impact of the delay on operations.

READ: Connecting the country to the world

The projects referred to are the Bifrost Cable System and the South-East Asia Hainan-Hong Kong Express Cable System (SEA-H2X).

The 15,000-kilometer (km) Bifrost project will connect the Philippines to Singapore, Indonesia, Guam and the west coast of North America. It has a design capacity of up to 15 terabits per second (Tbps).

The 5,000-km SEA-H2X project, which has a design capacity of 160 Tbps, covers the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, East Malaysia and Singapore.

Submarine cables are fiber optic systems linking countries via cables traversing the ocean floor. These enable the rapid flow of data across digital highways, which have become busier over the years as more individuals turn to online platforms for several tasks, including work and study.