The 20,000-kilometer Asia-Europe Sea-Me-We 4 subsea cable is to double in capacity. Subsea fibre suppliers Alcatel-Lucent and Fujitsu have begun upgrading the club cable, which runs from Singapore to France.
The upgrade is scheduled for completion in 2009. It is the second expansion of the long-haul cable and will take its trunk capacity beyond the original design limit. Sea-Me-We 4 was commissioned in late 2005 and was tripled in capacity in the middle of 2007.