SingTel joins cable consortium to build FASTER trans-pacific cable

A consortium of six global companies have signed commercial agreements to build and operate a new trans-Pacific cable system to the tune of about US$300 million.

Source: NEC. FASTER's Trans-Pacific route.

The FASTER cable network, to be completed by the second quarter of 2016, FASTER will feature the latest high-quality 6-fibre-pair cable and optical transmission technologies, with an initial design capacity of 60 Terabits per second (Tbps)*. It will connect the US with two landing locations in Japan, and NEC will supply the systems.

According to NEC, construction of FASTER will begin immediately and the system is targeted to be ready for service during the second quarter of 2016.

FASTER will land at Chikura and Shima in Japan and provide seamless connectivity to many neighbouring cable systems in Japan. Connections in the US will extend the system to major hubs across the West Coast covering California (Los Angeles and San Francisco), Portland in Oregon and Seattle in Washington.

The consortium comprises China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, Google, KDDI and SingTel. The name FASTER was adopted to represent the cable system’s purpose of rapidly serving traffic demands.

Ooi Seng Keat, Vice President, Carrier Services of SingTel Group Enterprise said: “SingTel is pleased to be part of a consortium which is constructing one of the highest capacity cable systems to be built. FASTER can transmit an equivalent of 12,000 high-definition movies every second across the Pacific Ocean. It will facilitate the delivery of broadband-heavy applications, video and contents to meet the future needs of consumers and enterprises. 

"This cutting-edge cable system will enable SingTel to provide our customers with greater network diversity and resilience, and reinforce our position as the leading provider of international data services in the region.”

Woohyong Choi, Chairman of the FASTER executive committee, said the agreement would benefit all Internet users around the world. "FASTER is one of a few hundred submarine telecommunications cables connecting various parts of the world. These cables collectively form an important infrastructure that helps run global Internet and communications. 

"The consortium partners are glad to work together to add a new cable to our global infrastructure. The FASTER cable system has the largest design capacity ever built on the trans-Pacific route, which is one of the longest routes in the world." 

“NEC Corporation is proud to be the system supplier for the FASTER cable system, a state-of-the-art long haul system that will provide additional connectivity and capacity between regions of the world that increasingly require more bandwidth," added Naoki Yoshida, GM, NEC’s Submarine Network Division. “Backed by more than 30 years of experience in constructing over 200,000 kilometres of cables, NEC is one of the world’s top vendors of submarine cable systems.”

*100 Gigabits per second x 100 wavelengths x 6 fibre pairs, or the equivalent of 60,000 Gigabits per second.