NTT Communications (NYSE: NTT) on Tuesday said its new Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE) undersea cable connecting major cities in Asia, will begin operations on Aug. 20.
The 40G cable, which will eventually incorporate 100G technology, will have a total carrying capacity exceeding 15 Tbps, a total length of about 7,800 km. It also has special designs to withstand earthquake and typhoon damage, a measure it is taking to enable consistent uptime.
Led by NTT, the main investor, ASE was built in partnership with other Asia Pacific-based service provider partners Philippines Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), StarHub and Telekom Malaysia. Fujitsu (OTC: FJTSY.PK) and NEC provided necessary equipment and project management for the new cable system.
Initially, the new network will have landing points in Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia, followed by Hong Kong in Q1 2013.
When the network goes live, NTT will offer a new enhanced global leased line service that incorporates ASE's low-latency routes into its existing Arcstar Global Leased Line Service, providing 65 milliseconds latency. In addition, the service provider will incorporate ASE into its global IP network backbone and later Arcstar Universal One, its cloud-based network service.
NTT will also leverage existing U.S.-Japan routes, including its PC-1 cable. PC-1 is particularly significant to the financial community as it provides a low latency connection between Tokyo and Chicago's Mercantile Exchange.
For more:
- see the release
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