Download Executing on a Plan: AP Telecom is Laser Focused

March - April 2012
Executing on a Plan:
AP Telecom is Laser Focused
The first segment of their business is to assist in the pre-sales
operations of new cable systems. As we all know, submarine
cables are expensive to build so
new systems must plan their financing very carefully. The three
main components for the funding of a system include equity
funding, capacity pre-sales, and
debt. All three are very important to the success of any new
system. In order to secure debt,
and secure debt at favorable
rates one must do a good job of
system pre-sales.
AP Telecom is a global data telecommunications carrier and consultancy business with expertise in emerging markets, coupled with vast industry experience
in the commercialization of submarine cable systems
and capacity sales on all major routes. AP Telecom
combines superior quality cost-competitive telecom
products with strategic advisory and cloud solutions.
AP Telecom CEO, Eric Handa
Telecom Review North America
recently sat down with the
executives of AP Telecom to
give our readers an insight into
some of their operations. We
met with the two founders of
AP Telecom, Eric Handa, CEO,
and Sean Bergin, President, and
received a professional briefing
on AP Telecom’ activities, and
felt that would be of interest to
our readers.
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The AP Telecom co-founders
have a deep background in the
submarine cable business so not
surprisingly the Company is very
active in that field. Their daily involvement in the global telecom
markets enables AP Telecom
to bring valuable perspective
to their partners and clients as
they undertake decisions that
require cross-border experience
and multi-disciplinary analyti-
cal capabilities. With offices in
New Jersey, Hong Kong, San
Francisco, London, Bangkok,
Sydney, and Japan, AP Telecom
is well rounded in its global
representation.
The AP Telecom Advisory Board
is one that is made up of well
known and well respected individuals from the international
submarine cable community.
The members include:
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Services Shanghai
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CEO KDD Submarine Cable
Systems.
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Investments
That is where the AP Telecom
group becomes involved as
they have extensive experience in this area. They have
several current clients that saw
their expertise as a natural fit.
Some of those clients include
the Emerald Network, and the
Arctic Fibre project. In addition
to the pre-sales, AP telecom is
frequently called upon to help
carriers monetize unused submarine cable.
Arctic Fibre Project
One example of a pre-sales
opportunity will be the Arctic
Fibre project. AP Telecom has
been engaged by Arctic Fibre
to serve as overall International
Sales Manager in the creation of
a new submarine cable system
joining Northern Asia and Japan
to the United States, Canada
and Northern Europe. The cable
will contain four fiber pairs,
each capable of transmitting 80
wavelengths and initial speeds
of 40Gbps, with provision to upgrade to 100 Gbps as technologies are proven up.
Arctic Fibre has addressed the
need for new international
communications infrastructure
with the creation of the lowest
latency network using a 15,600
km route through Canada’s
Northwest Passage which will
create the fastest route between Tokyo and London with
a sizzling 168 milliseconds. The
Tokyo to New York latency is
estimated at a very competitive
rate of 171 milliseconds. The
Arctic Fibre network will also
provide fiber bandwidth for the
first time to communities in the
Alaskan North Slope and the Canadian High Arctic. AP Telecom
will provide project management support to the Arctic Fibre
development team. As part of
the overall program management, AP Telecom will provide
Arctic Fibre with specialists in
the various commercial aspects
of system design, procurement
and the sales strategy behind
leveraging the capabilities and
reach of their network.
“To succeed in a complex
international venture requires
the development team have a
broad range of specialized skills,
and the practical experience to
efficiently manage through the
myriad issues that will arise,” said
Doug Cunningham, President
of Arctic Fibre. “We believe
AP Telecom brings all of this
expertise and specific skill sets
in the marketing of low latency
networks to the team.”
“We are honored to be a part of
such an important project in one
of the world’s fastest-growing
telecom markets and working
within the Arctic Fibre team to
bring their plans to fruition,” said
John Hibbard, Board Member
of AP Telecom and President of
the Pacific Telecommunications
Council (PTC). “We’re pleased to
play a major role in the development of the first undersea network connection directly linking
the Pacific landing stations with
those in the Atlantic and assist
Arctic Fibre with a roll-out of the
applications needed to meet
carriers’ voracious demands
for bandwidth over the next
decade.”
Extensive desk top studies have
been undertaken which follow
marine routings where the
water depths or horizontallydrilled cross sections are sufficient to preclude any ice scour
from hummocks or ridge ice.
The routing across Greenland’s
iceberg alley is at water depths
varying from 600-3,000 meters,
well below the reach of any
iceberg keel. Construction of
the link between Newfoundland
and Iqaluit, Nunavut in Canada
is slated for the third quarter of
2013 with construction of the
remaining links being undertaken in the third quarter of 2014.
Arctic Fibre will be financed by
Canadian financial institutions
and by a limited number of
international carriers.
Facilities Based Carrier
AP Telecom is a facilities based
voice carrier that provides voice
termination services from many
Asian countries to the United
States. They operate a robust international IP switching network
with locations at 60 Hudson,
and back up diversity at a
special site in Massachusetts. AP
Telecom has a large 24x7x365
NOC located in Guam to serve
all of its clients. This NOC has all
of the large carrier systems and
support and includes linguistics
support for its international
clients.
Cloud Servers
AP Telecom will be introducing its data center that will be
located in Guam to provide
cloud type services for its clients.
Guam is a natural location based
on its tax advantages. The bigger advantage is that Guam is a
major crossroads for submarine
cables from around the world.
This offshore data center will
be easily accessible and in a
convenient location for US/Asia
clients.
Executing on Their Plan
Both international and domestic
communication network assets and infrastructure collectively form the central nervous
system of our global society,
enabling the critical exchanges
of knowledge and information
that fuel sustainable growth and
long-term stability in developed
and emerging markets around
the world.
AP Telecom’s team of seasoned
industry veterans have a deep
understanding of the complex
and interrelated issues that
govern global telecom
infrastructure maintenance
and development and are executing on their plans to further
develop telecom infrastructure
for their clients, and for their
Company!
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