In December 1994, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed by 16 Parties for the development of the SEA-ME-WE 3 project. At first, it was meant to connect Western Europe and Singapore. In 1996, additional MOUs were added, extending from Singapore to the far east and also to Australia.
SEA-ME-WE 3 stands for "South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe". It has landing points in 39 cities in many countries throughout the regions.
Started commissioning in March 2000, the cable is 39,000 km long, and uses Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology with Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) transmission to increase capacity and enhance the quality of the signal.
Led by France Telecom and China Telecom, and administered by Singtel, the SEA-ME-WE 3 is the longest optical submarine telecommunications cable in the world. It is the successor of SEA-ME-WE 2 that was also the world's longest optical fiber submarine cable system at 18,751 km before it went defunct in October 2006.