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Six-member consortium completes build and testing of FASTER system.
The FASTER cable system linking Japan with the west coast of the U.S. will go into service on Thursday, NEC announced on Wednesday.
The Japanese vendor is a supplier for the system, which is a joint venture between six major telecoms and technology firms: China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, Google, KDDI and Singtel.
The companies announced plans to begin work on the 9,000-km cable system just under two years ago. They have since completed the build and carried out end-to-end testing.
"This was the first trans-Pacific submarine cable built solely by NEC Corporation, employing the latest 100 Gbps digital coherent optical transmission technology," said Kenichi Yoneyama, project manager for FASTER at NEC’s Submarine Network Division.
"Although we faced many challenges during the construction, I am truly glad that we were able to overcome these and to welcome this day," Yoneyama said. "This epoch-making cable will not only bring benefits to the United States and Japan, but to the entire Asia-Pacific region."
FASTER lands in Oregon in the U.S. and has two landing points in Japan, in the Chiba and Mie prefectures.
Extended connections in the U.S. enable it to reach Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland and Seattle, while the Japanese landing points ensure access to the country;s major cities. Connectivity beyond Japan to other Asian markets is facilitated via connections with neighbouring cable systems.
FASTER is a six-fibre pair cable capable of delivering 60 Tbps of bandwidth across the Pacific.
