Pacific Crossing, a subsidiary of NTT Communications (NYSE: NTT) that runs the transpacific, subsea fiber-optic network ring, PC-1, has appointed Takahiro Sumimoto as its new CEO.
Prior to taking up his latest post, Sumimoto was recently a Vice President of NTT America and also serves as a member on Pacific Crossing's board. Earlier, Sumimoto Director of Global Business at NTT Communications focusing on global telecommunications service planning for enterprises and Tier 1 IP Transit services sales.
Sumitomo's appointment comes at a time of increasing bandwidth growth on the PC-1 network system.
NTT itself recently reached the 400 Gbps capacity mark, with plans to reach 600 Gbps by the end of this year.
In separate news, NTT has, according a Bloomberg report, awarded NEC a $362 million contract to supply the carrier with undersea cables to connect Japan with Southeast Asia.
While the submarine cabling equipment business may have collapsed in the late 1990s, ongoing demand for bandwidth-hungry applications such as online video and smart phones is driving a submarine cabling renaissance.
And even though the submarine network equipment market has become a three horse race between NEC (Other OTC: NIPNF.PK), Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) and Tyco (NYSE: TEL), new contracts from the likes of NTT and other large carriers represents what Frost & Sullivan believes is a $2.6 billion market. By 2015, the research firm estimates the submarine cabling supply market will grow by about 9 percent a year through 2015.
For more:
- see the release
- Bloomberg has this report on NEC
Related articles:
NTT Communications reaches 400 Gbps capacity mark
NTT soups up its Japan-US submarine connection
New Asian cable coming; NTT to buy PC
Bidders for the PC-1 cable became clear in March