Unity Cable System Completed, Boosts Trans-Pacific Connectivity
The 9,620km submarine cable system linking Japan and the West Coast of the US completes testing and is ready for service
31 March 2010 – USA / 1 April 2010 – Asia – Unity, a consortium of six international companies, together with its suppliers NEC Corporation and TE SubCom (formerly Tyco Telecommunications), today announced that the Trans-Pacific Unity submarine cable system has successfully completed comprehensive end-to-end testing and is now ready for service.
“Following months of testing to ensure that the cable system meets the rigorous transmission standards specified, the Unity cable system is now ready to deliver the much anticipated capacity to meet the Trans-Pacific connectivity needs of members of the consortium,” said Chris Wilson, Chairman of the Unity Executive Committee.
The Unity cable system provides direct connectivity between Chikura, located on the coast near Tokyo, and West Coast network Points-of-Presence in Los Angeles, Palo Alto and San Jose. At Chikura, Unity is seamlessly connected to other cable systems, further enhancing connectivity into Asia.
Through the deployment of state-of-the-art submarine cable technology, the five fiber pair Unity cable system is designed to deliver up to 4.8 Terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth across the Pacific, with each fiber pair having a capacity of up to 960 Gigabits per second (Gbps).
Construction of the system was first announced in February 2008 by the Unity consortium which comprises of Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, Google, KDDI Corporation, Pacnet and SingTel. The Unity cable system was constructed at a cost of approximately US$300 million.
The name Unity was chosen to signify a new type of consortium, born out of potentially competing systems, to emerge as a system within a system, offering ownership and management of individual fiber pairs.
About Unity
Unity is an international consortium that developed the 9,620 km undersea cable system connecting Japan and the United States. The system provides much needed capacity to sustain the increased growth in data and Internet traffic between Asia and the United States. Members of the consortium include Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, Google, KDDI, Pacnet and SingTel. NEC Corporation and TE SubCom (formerly Tyco Telecommunications) are the main suppliers for the Unity project.
About Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel Limited, a group company of Bharti Enterprises, is among Asia’s leading integrated telecom services providers with operations in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. In South Asia, the company had an aggregate of over 134 million customers as of end February 2010, including 124.6 million mobile customers in India. Bharti Airtel has been ranked among the six best performing technology companies in the world by BusinessWeek. Bharti Airtel is structured as four strategic business units – Mobile, Telemedia, Enterprise and Digital TV. All these services are provided under the Airtel brand. Airtel’s national high-speed optic fibre network currently spans over 118,337 Rkms across India. Airtel’s international network infrastructure includes ownership of the i2i submarine cable system and consortium ownership in five global undersea cable systems, SEA-ME-WE 4, EIG, I-ME-WE, AAG and UNITY.
About Global Transit
Global Transit is part of a Kuala Lumpur based telecommunications group with a specific focus on providing robust wholesale and enterprise services. Its investments include TIME dotCom, an infrastructure rich carrier & Malaysia’s No 2 fixed line operator. Global Transit was founded in 2005 by a small group of technology entrepreneurs.
About Google
Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia.
About KDDI
KDDI is the only Japanese information and communications company that comprehensively provides all communications services, from fixed to mobile. KDDI is aggressively working towards realization of the coming Ubiquitous Network Society through its ability to develop leading-edge fixed and mobile communications networks, and services to support them, and through the ability to carry out technical R&D; at a level unsurpassed anywhere.
About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation has devoted more than 100 years of technological innovation to serving people around the world. The NEC Group’s concept of a “C&C; Cloud” integrates Computers with Communications and provides services that contribute to the advancement of society, individuals and business. NEC combines IT and network technologies to deploy solutions with the scalability, capability and affordability to meet the complex and ever-changing needs of business and to empower society.
About Pacnet
Pacnet is Asia’s leading independent telecommunications service provider, formed from the operational merger of Asia Netcom and Pacific Internet. Pacnet owns and operates EAC-C2C, the region’s largest privately-owned submarine cable network at 36,800 km, with a design capacity of 10.24 Tbps. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of industry leading IP-based solutions for carriers, large enterprises and SMEs. Pacnet is headquartered in Hong Kong and Singapore, with offices across Asia and in the US and Europe.
About SingTel
SingTel is Asia’s leading communications group providing a portfolio of services including voice and data solutions over fixed, wireless and Internet platforms as well as infocomm technology and pay TV. It has a network of 37 offices in 20 countries and territories throughout Asia Pacific, Europe and the United States. Together with its regional partners, SingTel is Asia’s largest multi-market mobile operator, serving more than 285 million mobile customers in eight markets.
About TE SubCom
TE SubCom (formerly Tyco Telecommunications), a business unit of Tyco Electronics and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology and marine services, is a leading global supplier for today’s undersea communications requirements. Drawing on its heritage of technical innovation and industry recognized performance, the company delivers the most reliable, high-quality solutions to organizations with undersea communications needs vital to their core mission. In more than five decades of operation, TE SubCom has designed, manufactured, and installed more than 100 undersea fiber optic systems around the world.
Media Contacts:
Bharti Airtel
Sandipan Ghatak
Tel: +91 124 4243052
Fax: +91 124 4243252
Mob: +91 9810776182
sandipan.g@airtel.in
www.airtel.in
Global Transit
Mah Siew Yan
Tel : +603 2031 4988 ext 337
Fax : +603 2031 8948
siewyan.mah@globaltransit.net
www.globaltransit.net
Google
Yoshi Funabashi / Jake Hubert
Tel: +81 (3)6415-5842 / +1 650 488 4807
funabashi@google.com/ jakehubert@google.com
www.google.com
KDDI
Shin-ichiro Itoyama
Public Relations Department
Tel: +81-3-6678-0690
www.kddi.com
www.kddi.com/english/index.html
NEC
Joseph Jasper
Corporate Communications Division
Tel: +81 (0)3 3798 6511
j-jasper@ax.jp.nec.com
www.nec.com
Pacnet
Lorain Wong / Roland Lim
Tel: +852 2121 2973 / +852 2121 2975
lorain.wong@pacnet.com/ roland.lim@pacnet.com
www.pacnet.com
SingTel
Dylan Tan
Corporate Communications Manager
Tel: +65 6838 8772
dylantan@singtel.com
www.singtel.com
TE SubCom
Courtney McDaniel
Tel: +1 973 656 8000
info@tycotelecom.com
www.tycotelecom.com
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