NEC Corporation has signed a capacity upgrade contract with major telecom operators in the Asia Pacific region. The company will provide a comprehensive set of equipment and services including commissioning and integration on a full turnkey basis.

The system will serve as the broadband backbone network in the Asia Pacific region on its completion in the fourth quarter of 2006. .

APCN2 (Asia Pacific Cable Network 2) has over 19,000km and connects 10 landing stations in the Asia Pacific region. It was originally supplied by NEC in 2001. Current capacity of the APCN2 is 160Gbps and it is to be expanded up to 280Gbps.

In the last one year, NEC has signed three separate supply contracts for the construction of new submarine cable systems (Indonesia Jasuka project, EAC1 Qingdao Extension project and India - Sri Lanka project). In addition to the new construction contracts, NEC has also been awarded capacity upgrade contracts for the existing submarine cable systems including domestic cables in Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan.

“We are honoured that the APCN2 Purchasers have again selected us as their capacity upgrade supplier. This is certainly a reflection of our comprehensive project implementation capability and highly advanced DWDM technologies for broadband telecommunication, proven by our past submarine cable projects, including the original APCN2 construction. NEC will continue to aim to win other projects for the upgrading and new construction of submarine cable systems”, said Mr. Osamu Harada, General Manager at NEC Corporation.

APCN2 provides interconnection to Australia and Europe via SMW3 (Sea-Me-We 3, 39,000 km) and AJC (Australia-Japan Cable, 11,000 km) and across the Pacific Ocean to USA via the China-US and Japan-US cables that were commissioned in 2001.

Picture courtesy of StarHub.