SJC Southeast Asia-Japan Cable System Now Operational

The SJC Parties announced that the Southeast Asia-Japan Cable (SJC) system is now operational. The system, supplied by TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. Company, and NEC Corporation, provides connectivity to key destinations to meet the growing bandwidth requirement in the region and allow for cost-effective and resilient connectivity to other submarine cable systems.

Operated by a global consortium of telecommunications and technology companies, the SJC cable system links the seven countries or territories of Brunei, mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the Philippines, including the option to link with Thailand.

The SJC is an 8,900-kilometer cable system, which could further extend to 9,700 kilometers. At a project cost of around $400 million, the SJC cable system consists of 6 fiber pairs with the initial design capacity of 28 Terabits per second to meet bandwidth-intensive applications such as Internet TV, online games and enterprise data exchange. To illustrate, the cable’s design capacity can support simultaneous streaming of up to 30 million high-definition videos.

Mr. Ooi Seng Keat, spokesperson for the SJC consortium and SingTel’s Vice President, Carrier Services International Business Unit, Group Enterprise said, “The SJC is interconnected seamlessly with the latest transpacific cable, which together will deliver the lowest latency connectivity between Asia and the U.S., specifically from Singapore to Los Angeles. As the SJC cable route avoids the earthquake zone in North Asia, it enhances the operators’ network resilience by offering cable diversity and reliability in the event of a cable breakage in other undersea networks.

“Equipped with the highest available transmission speed for an undersea cable network, the SJC will be able to carry more bandwidth-intensive applications which can transform the way enterprises and consumers in the region work, live, learn and play. The SJC’s huge bandwidth will thus be able to accommodate the creation of future applications and innovative solutions, thus spurring the development of information and communications technology in the region,” he added.

The SJC is a global consortium of companies composed of Brunei International Gateway Sendirian Berhad (BIG), China Mobile International Ltd. (CMI), China Telecommunications Corporation (China Telecom), China Telecom Global Limited (CTG, an affiliate of China Telecommunications Corporation), Donghwa Telecom Co., Ltd. (a subsidiary of Chunghwa Telecom, Co.,Ltd.), Globe Telecom, Inc., Google, KDDI Corporation, Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel), PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (Telin a subsidiary of PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Tbk), and TOT Public Co., Ltd. (TOT).