China Mobile International, Facebook and AWS have contracted NEC to build a new subsea cable connecting Singapore, Hong Kong and the US.
The Bay to Bay Express Cable System (BtoBE) will be a 16,000km cable featuring multiple pairs of optical fiber. It will have a design capacity of at least 18Tbps per fiber pair and a round trip latency of less than 130ms, due to a record-breaking design that covers the longest-distance without repeaters.
Construction of the cable is expected to be complete by the fourth quarter of 2020. Once complete, BtoBE is expected to deliver much-needed expanded capacity between the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area and Singapore.
The cable will also be able to support the Chinese government's Greater Bay Area economic development initiative for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao area.
"NEC is honored to be selected by the BtoBE consortium as the turn-key system supplier for this world record-breaking optical fiber submarine cable system that covers the longest distance without regeneration,” NEC GM of submarine networks Toru Kawauchi said in a statement announcing the awarding of the contract.
"The BtoBE will provide seamless connectivity and network diversity, while serving to complement other Asia-Pacific submarine cables, among others."