NTT Communications will next Monday launch ASE, a low latency undersea cable that carries "special designs to withstand earthquake and typhoon damages."
Amounting to US$430 million investment (NTT Com contributes to half of it), the undersea cable will be jointly constructed by NTT Com and three other carriers in Asia: Telekom Malaysia, PLDT and StarHub.
While the undersea cable covers Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Hong Kong, “We look forward to extending more connections across Asia and details will be announced in due course,” said Junta Nakanishi, director of network engineering, global network business, NTT Com.
The Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE) is designed as an ultra-low latency network that incorporates the latest 40 Gbps optical technology, and has the capability to extend to 100 Gbps in the future, said Nakanishi.
Nakanishi added the ASE's Japan-Singapore connection with an industry-leading latency of less than 65 milliseconds latency, is 3 milliseconds faster than routes via other subsea cables.
"The ultra low-latency connectivity of ASE is especially targeted at carriers, internet service providers, cloud service providers and financial enterprises, such as high-frequency trading firms that issue huge numbers of buy and sell orders for financial products, which must transmit such information instantaneously," he said.
The ASE will also be tasked to deliver NTT Com's private, public and hybrid cloud services via its global data centers.
In an interview with Asia Cloud Forum's Carol Ko, NTT Com's Nakanishi explains how ASE is designed to be earthquake- and typhoon- resistant, so as to minimize their potential disruption to IT services delivery, including cloud computing services.