NEC Corp. has supplied a trans-Pacific submarine cable system to a U.S.-led consortium for commercial service to meet growing demand for bandwidth between Southeast Asia and North America in line with economic growth in the fast-developing Asia-Pacific region.
The $250 million Southeast Asia-U.S. Cable System, or SEA-U.S., led by RAM Telecom International Inc., spans a total length of 15,000 km (over 9,300 miles) from the Philippines and Indonesia to California via Guam and Hawaii, delivering a capacity of 20 terabits per second.
"Trans-Pacific capacity demand will continue to outweigh existing supply for many years to come," said Russ Matulich, RTI president and chief executive officer. "The investment is now providing essential route diversity capabilities and onward connectivity options for our clients."
NEC subsidiary OCC Corp. manufactured the cable which is durable for water pressure at a depth of 8,000 meters (26,000 feet) below the sea.
Upon completion of the construction work since March 2015, the Japanese company has begun a 3,900-km (2,400-mile) marine route survey to build an extension between Hong Kong and Guam to connect with the trans-Pacific cable system.
The Tokyo-based electronics maker, one of the world's major submarine cable system vendors, has laid a total of more than 250,000 km (over 155,000 miles) of submarine cables, equivalent to six circumnavigations of the Earth.
The SEA-U.S. consortium consists of six firms — RTI, Global Telecom Inc. of the Philippines, PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia International, Guam-based Teleguam Holdings LLC, Hawaiian Telecom Holdco Inc. and GTI Corp. of the United States.