MANILA, Philippines - A group of telecommunications and technology firms including Ayala-led Globe Telecom Inc. will build and operate an international submarine cable system to address the growing broadband demand in Asia.

Called the Southeast Asia Japan Cable (SJC), the planned undersea cable system will initially link Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Japan.

Globe Telecom has teamed up with Google (United States), KDDI (Japan), Network i2i (India), Reliance Globalcom (Bermuda), and Telemedia Pacific Inc. Ltd. (Hong Kong/Indonesia) for the said project. The initiating parties signed the agreements in Manila on Thursday.

The cable system, estimated to cost $400 million, will span about 8,300 kilometers. Operational by the second quarter of 2012, it will have a maximum design capacity of 23 terabits per second (Tbps), the highest capacity built so far.

About 1.2 Tbps to 2 Tbps will be going through the Philippine branch, Globe Telecom said in a statement released Friday. It added that the SJC is the company's fifth major investment in submarine cable systems.

Globe Telecom president and chief executive officer Ernest Cu said the SJC is expected to further increase the capacity and boost the resiliency of the company's network.

"The investment of Globe in the SJC project is a testament of our commitment to provide our customers with the best connected network so they get uninterrupted and quality service," Cu said.

"Significantly upgraded bandwidth, coupled with dramatically lower unit costs, provide fuel for more Internet services, and provides even more choices for business customers who need to connect internationally," Globe Telecom carrier services head Gil Genio added.

Globe Telecom's rival company, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), has earlier joined 7 other Asian companies to build an international undersea cable system within the region. (Read: PLDT joins Asia-Pacific consortium to build cable system)

PLDT announced last month that the Asia-America Gateway, another submarine cable network it helped build, is now fully operational. (Read: Asia-America gateway cable network goes live)