NEC Wins SJC Undersea Cable Deal

SINGAPORE -- The global consortium of telecommunications companies formed to build and operate the South-East Asia Japan Cable (SJC) system officially announces the start of the construction of the project that will link Brunei, China Mainland, Hong Kong, Philippines, Japan, and Singapore, with options to extend to Indonesia and Thailand. The SJC consortium has awarded the supply contract for the new international submarine cable system to two companies. First announced in December 2009, the cable was initially planned to be 8,300 km in length, linking 5 countries / territories. SJC’s length is now 8,900 km which could extend up to 10,700 km, linking up to 8 countries / territories while supporting an initial design capacity of over 15 terabits per second.

The SJC consortium is composed of Brunei International Gateway Sendirian Berhad (BIG), China Mobile, China Telecommunications Corporation (China Telecom), China Telecom (Hong Kong) International Ltd. (CTHKI, an Affiliate of China Telecommunications Corporation), Donghwa Telecom Co., Ltd., Globe Telecom, Inc., Google SJC Bermuda Ltd. (a subsidiary of Google Inc.), KDDI Corporation, Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel), PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (Telin), Telemedia Pacific Inc. (TPI), and TOT Public Co., Ltd. (TOT). With the strength of the investors to the project, the SJC will bring more available bandwidth to Asia to support future applications and next-generation technologies.

Mr Ooi Seng Keat, Chairman of the SJC executive committee, said, “The SJC is carefully designed to serve as many direct circuits between the landing points/POPs and is routed nearer the Northern part of the Philippines, thereby avoiding an area that is frequently stricken by earthquakes. The SJC will enable members of the consortium to meet the growing demands of the region, not just for increased Internet usage, but bandwidth intensive applications such as Internet TV, games and enterprise data exchange.”

NEC Corp. (Tokyo: 6701)