60Tbps Faster cable system ready for service

• 9,000km submarine cable system boosts trans-Pacific capacity and connectivity
• Consortium members include Google, Singtel and TIME dotCom

 
FASTER, a consortium of six international companies, and its supplier NEC Corp, has announced that construction and end-to-end testing of the new trans-Pacific submarine cable system has been successfully completed and will start service today (June 30).
 
Faster is the first trans-Pacific submarine cable system designed to deliver 60 terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth using a six-fibre pair cable, the consortium said in a statement.
 
Consortium members are China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Japan’s KDDI Corp; US tech giant Google Inc; Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (Singtel); and TIME dotCom Bhd from Malaysia.
 
“The completion of the Faster cable system will provide capacity to support the expected fourfold increase in broadband traffic demand between Asia and North America,” said Ooi Seng Keat, vice president, Carrier Services of Singtel Group Enterprise.
 
“With a state-of-the-art design, the cable system provides continuous connectivity and sufficiently high capacity for cloud, video streaming, analytics and the Internet of Things, that will help spur innovation on both sides of the Pacific to stimulate the growth of the digital economy,” he added.

The 9,000km Faster cable system lands in Oregon in the United States and two landing points in Japan, in the Chiba and Mie prefectures, and from there to other Asian locations.
 
The system has extended connections to major hubs on the US West Coast covering Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland and Seattle.
 
“From the very beginning of the project, we repeatedly said to each other, ‘faster, Faster and FASTER’ – and at one point it became the project name and today it becomes a reality,” said Faster management committee chairman Hiromitsu Todokoro.
 
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TIME invests in Faster to keep pace with IP traffic demand
 
SEA-ME-WE 5 cable system lands in Malaysia
 
 
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