wiredInUSA April 2018

Intra-Asia cable plan

The Southeast Asia–Japan 2 consortium (SJC2) has signed an agreement with NEC Corporation to build a submarine cable to connect Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, Korea and Japan.

SJC2 cable marks a key milestone in intra- Asian digital collaboration.

“The newer and higher capacity cable complements the earlier SJC which was completed in 2013. “It is a critical infrastructure to provide seamless connectivity, lower latency and network diversity to enterprises and customers in this economically dynamic part of the world.” The SJC2 will be built and operated by a global consortium comprising telecommunications and technology companies, including China Mobile International, Chuan Wei, Chunghwa Telecom, Facebook, KDDI, Singtel, SK Broadband and VNPT.

Construction of the 10,500km cable is expected to be complete by late 2020.

The cable will feature up to eight fiber pairs of high capacity optical fiber with initial design capacity of 144 Terabits per second, roughly the equivalent of simultaneously streaming 5.76 million ultra- high definition videos. Its high capacity allows it to support high bandwidth intensive requirements such as the Internet of Things, robotics, analytics and artificial or virtual reality applications.

Ms Linette Lee, chairperson of the SJC2 consortium, said: “The construction of

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wiredInUSA - April 2018