Consortium chooses NEC for Bay to Bay Express Cable System

NEC Corp. says that it will build the Bay to Bay Express Cable System (BtoBE) at the behest of a consortium that comprises China Mobile International, Facebook, and Amazon Web Services (see “China Mobile to connect Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao, San Francisco, and Singapore Bay areas with BtBE submarine cable ”). The 16,000-km BtoBE submarine network will link Singapore, Hong Kong and the United States. NEC expects to finish its task by the fourth quarter of 2020.

The fiber cable system takes its name from the fact that it will connect the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area and Singapore. The multi-pair undersea cable system will offer a round-trip latency of less than 130 msec, according to NEC. The company promises to use “the most advanced optical submarine transmission equipment” in the project, which will create a submarine cable system that will offer network redundancy, flexibility, and reliability.

"NEC is honored to be selected by the BtoBE consortium as the turnkey system supplier for this world record-breaking optical fiber submarine cable system that covers the longest distance without regeneration. The BtoBE, landing at three locations spanning across the Pacific Ocean, is designed so that once completed, it can carry at least 18 Tbps of capacity per fiber pair," said Toru Kawauchi, general manager of the Submarine Network Division at NEC. "The BtoBE will provide seamless connectivity and network diversity, while serving to complement other Asia-Pacific submarine cables, among others."

NEC has prior experience in submarine network construction with at least some of the consortium members. China Mobile International and Facebook are members of the consortium behind the Southeast Asia–Japan 2 submarine cable system, for example.

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