The Southeast Asia-Japan 2 consortium (SJC2) has signed an agreement with Japanese IT firm NEC Corporation to build a high performance submarine cable connecting Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, Korea and Japan. Construction of the 10,500-kilometer long cable is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2020.
The cable will feature up to eight fibre pairs of high capacity optical fibre with initial design capacity of 144 Terabits per second, roughly the equivalent of simultaneously streaming 5.76 million ultra-high definition videos per second. Its high capacity allows it to support high bandwidth intensive requirements such as the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, analytics and artificial or virtual reality applications.
“The construction of SJC2 cable marks a key milestone in intra-Asian digital collaboration,” said Linette Lee, Chairperson of the SJC2 consortium and Director, Submarine Cable Investments at Singtel's Carrier Services, International Business Unit, Group Enterprise. “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.
“NEC is honored to be selected by the SJC2 Consortium as the supplier for the most advanced optical fiber submarine cable system, landing at eleven locations across nine countries and regions. SJC2 is designed so that once completed, it can carry at least 18Tbps of capacity per fiber pair,” said Atsuo Kawamura, NEC's Senior Vice President, Telecom Carrier Business Unit.
“The robust and flexible design will enable SJC2 to cope with future changes in capacity demands. SJC2 will provide seamless connectivity and network diversity, while serving to complement other Intra-Asia submarine cables, among others, such as the original SJC built in 2013,” he added.
