Construction Of 9,000-Km Submarine Cable System Linking Japan, West Coast Of US Completed

SINGAPORE, June 29 (Bernama) -- The construction of the FASTER cable system, a 9,000-km submarine cable system linking Japan and the West Coast of the US, is completed and ready for service on June 30, 2016. FASTER is a consortium of six international companies. One of its members is Global Transit, a 100 per cent unit of Malaysia's TIME dotCom Bhd. In a statement Wednesday, Vice President, Carrier Services of Singtel Group Enterprise, Ooi Seng Keat, said the completion of the cable system will provide capacity to support the expected four-fold increase in broadband traffic demand between Asia and North America. "By adding network redundancy and ultra-low latency to our existing trans-Pacific cable systems, it reinforces our leadership in international data services in the region and enhances our infrastructure to support our customers' critical data traffic. "With a state-of-the-art design, the cable system provides continuous connectivity and sufficiently high capacity for cloud, video streaming, analytics and the Internet of Things, that will help spur innovation on both sides of the Pacific to stimulate the growth of the digital economy," he said. The FASTER cable system lands in Oregon in the US and two landing points in Japan, namely Chiba and Mie prefectures. The system has extended connections to major hubs on the West Coast of the US covering Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, Portland and Seattle. The two landing points in Japan facilitate the cable's easy access to major cities in Japan. FASTER's robust and resilient connectivity to many neighbouring cable systems extend the cable's capacity beyond Japan to other Asian locations. It is the first trans-Pacific submarine cable system designed to deliver 60 terabits per second of bandwidth using a six-fibre pair cable across the Pacific. Construction of the system was announced in August 2014 by the FASTER consortium, consisting of China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, Google, KDDI and Singtel. --BERNAMA