Japan-U.S. Cable Network selects Ciena's 100G equipment for upgrade

Japan-U.S. Cable Network, one of the many new emerging submarine cable consortiums to emerge in recent years, is upgrading its network with Ciena's (Nasdaq: CIEN) 100G technology

Set to go live early next year, Japan-U.S. Cable Network is building a 23,000 km cable linking the U.S. to Japan.

By implementing Ciena's 6500 Packet Optical platform on its network, the consortium said it will be able to carry 5 Tbps of additional capacity to a global network route connecting North America to northern Asia.

Like a number of other submarine cable efforts, the Japan-U.S. Cable is being built via a consortium of 35 members. Some of the participating members include: AT&T (NYSE: T), Cable & Wireless Worldwide (OTC: CBWWF.PK), CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL), KDDI, NTT (NYSE: NTT), REACH, SOFTBANK TELECOM, and Verizon (NYSE: VZ).

Besides the Japan-U.S. Cable Network, there has been a flurry of new submarine cable activity over the past five years to support the growth of bandwidth hungry services like online video.

According to a recent study by TeleGeography, this drive is not only providing more capacity but also lower prices in traditionally high priced bandwidth regions, including Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America.

For more:
- see the release

Special report: In detail: Following the Packet Optical Transport Systems (P-OTS) evolution

Related articles:
Submarine cabling boom drives down bandwidth prices in high cost regions
Ciena ups its control plane ante with new OneConnect offering
Verizon takes 100G optical into its metro networks
Cable & Wireless Worldwide puts together new 100G European network