Telstra is building fibre-optic networks across the Asia-Pacific region.

The company has announced plans to a fibre overland route between Taiwan and Hong Kong, a fibre ring network in South Korea, and a submarine cable that links networks in Asia to India and the Middle East.

Telstra is also looking to secure capacity on a new cable system connecting Asia and the US.

The company says it is investing heavily in Telstra's ongoing investment in the 36,000km former Pacnet cable network system that it bought for $697 million two years ago.

It connects China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.

The plans include an overland fibre network in Taiwan to avoid the natural disaster-prone Luzon Strait that other pass through on the route between Taipei and Hong Kong.

“This new dual-fibre network is enabled as part of Telstra's Optical Transport Network,” said Telstra executive director of International Operations and Services Darrin Webb.

“It will introduce the shortest and fastest route available in the market between Taipei, Kaoshiung, and Hong Kong, with lower risk of disruption than services passing through the Luzon Strait.”

Telstra is building a fibre ring to link its current points of presence (PoPs) in South Korea, which will see eight 100Gbps interconnection routes available in and out of the country.

The Korean ring network should be more reliable and provide more redundancy options while also connecting to additional submarine cables.

The company’s ambitions also include the new Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) 100Gbps submarine cable system.

It will be made up of three fibre pairs running about 8,000km to connect Singapore, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.

“BBG is designed to provide highly upgradable facilities by adopting the state-of-the-art 100Gbps technology, meaning our customers can access one of the fastest routes available between Singapore and the Middle East,” Webb said.

When the BBG and the Europe India Gateway (EIG) subsea cables come online, the Telstra network will allow direct connections from Asia to Europe.

And finally, Telstra has purchased capacity on the new trans-pacific ‘FASTER’ 10,000km subsea cable system connecting Japan with the United States.

“The FASTER cable system provides a high-capacity route from Japan to the United States, and supports further development of Telstra's new PoP capabilities in Seattle, which enables us to provide flexible, high-capacity services between these regions using Telstra's software-defined networking solution,” Webb said.

The company was forced to expand its services in response to massive uptake of data services, Webb says.

“We already own and operate the largest intra-Asia subsea network, representing around 30 percent of total active capacity,” he said.

“These enhancements further extend our capacity, and will support the provision of our leading technologies, such as Telstra's PEN software-defined networking and cloud, security, and unified communications services.”