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China-US CN(China-US Cable Network or CUCN) is the first submarine cable system with direct cable routes linking the U.S. and China, reaching several countries in the Asia-Pacific region. This trans-pacific subsea optical fiber cable system was planned in 1997 and put into service in early 2000, constructed by a consortium including AT&T, China Telecom, NTT, KT, CHT etc.. China-US CNsubsea cable consists of four optical fiber pairs in its northern trans-pacific trunk between Chongming cable landing station and Bandon cable landing station, and southern trans-pacific trunk between Shantou cable landing station and San Lius Obispo cable landing station, as well as the western and eastern trunks linking Shantou- Chongming, and Bandon-San Lius Obispo respectively, with branches to Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Guam. China-US CNwas designed with 8x2.488 Gbps (STM-16) SDH over DWDM, a total of 80 Gbps trans-pacific system capacity with SDH self-healing ring protection. China-US CNwas the largest trans-pacific subsea cable system as of its commencement of service.
China-US CN was early retired in December 2016.
COLUMBUS III is a 9,900 km transatlantic submarine cable linking the US, Portugal, Spain and Italy. COLUMBUS III, with 2 fiber pairs and a design capacity of 20 Gbps. was ready for service in December 1999 and decommissioned in December 2020.
The Columbus III consortium comprises:
The Columbus III cable lands at:
The COLUMBUS-III cable system consists of five segments, S1, S2, S3, S4, and S5, with two optical fiber pairs per segment, initially designed to operate at 2.5 Gbps per wavelength per fiber pair in a trunk and branch structure configured as a collapsed ring. COLUMBUS-III was initially be configured with two wavelengths, designed to support up to eight wavelengths per fiber pair. The capacity of each fiber pair comprises thirty-two Basic System Modules (BSM), with each BSM containing 63 Minimum Investment Units (MIUs). Each fiber pair was equipped at the outset with a capacity of 1008 MIUs.
The COLUMBUS-III cable system also has four other terminal segments: Segment A, B, C and D, as shown in the figure below:
In 2009, the Columbus III consortium selected Xtera to upgrade the system capacity to 160 Gbps, with Xtera’s advanced 20 Gbps Differential Phase Shift Key (DPSK) Submarine Line Terminal Equipment (SLTE).
The COLUMBUS-III cable system was decommissioned in December 2020, with its COLUMBUS-III Azores-Portugal portion connecting Lisbon and Azores Island remaining service.
FLAG Europe Asia (now FEA), originally called Fibre-optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG), is a 28,000km submarine cable connecting 18 countries and regions in Asia, Africa and Europe. FLAG EA (FEA) was opened for commercial service on 22 November 1997.
FLAG Europe Asia (FEA) was originally a private cable owned by FLAG Telecom. FLAG Europe Asia, FLAG North Asia Loop/REACH North Asia Loop (FNAL/RNAL), FALCON and FLAG Atlantic 1 (FA-1)formed FLAG Global Network. In 2003, Reliance Communications, now branded as Global Cloud Xchange (GCX), acquired FLAG Telecom for $207million.
FLAG Europe Asia (FEA) lands at the following cable landing stations:
The Japan-US CN (Japan-US Cable Network or JUSCN) is the first high capacity trans-pacific subsea cable system using DWDM technology of 10 Gbps per wavelength, ready for service in August 2001 and decommissioned in July 2023.
The Japan-US CNconsists of four fiber pairs, each operating at 10 Gbps DWDM, with design capacity of 640 Gbit/s. Initially, the Japan-US CNoperated at 80 Gbps with two lit fiber pairs, expanding to 400 Gbps in mid 2001 by lighting the two remaining fiber pairs each with 16 wavelengths at 10 Gbps per wavelength, further upgrading to 1.28 Tbps in early 2008.
In early 2013, the Japan-US CN was upgraded with Ciena’s coherent 100G technology, bringing 5 Tbps of additional capacity to reach a system capacity of approximately 6.4 Tbps.
In July 2023, the Japan-US CN was decommisioned, 22 years after its ready for service in 2001, with its Segment 1 remaining operational, connecting Hawaii and California. Verizon Business Global LLC dba Verizon Business (Verizon), on behalf of the licensees of the Japan-US CN, notified the FCC later that the Japan-US CN, with the exception of Segment 1 of the cable system, was retired from service as of October 30, 2023.
In Feburary 2024, the Japan-US CN consortium selected Mertech Marine to provide a turnkey decommissioning service for the Japan–US submarine cable system, encompassing the recovery and recycling of shore-ends in both Japan and the USA and the removal of spare cable from the associated cable storage depots.
In July 2024, Verizon Business Global and Hawaiian Telecom jointly filed with the FCC to operate the California-Hawaii S1 (CHI) cable system, i.e., the remaining operational Segment 1 of the Japan-US CN.
South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 3 (SEA-ME-WE 3 or SMW3) is a submarine cable linking 39 cable landing stations in 33 countries and 4 continents, including Asia, Australia, Africa and Europe.
The SEA-ME-WE 3 submarine cable system retired on December 2nd, 2024.
SEA-ME-WE 3 (SMW3) was the longest submarine cable system in the world with a total length of 39,000 km, prior to the launch of the 2Africa cable system which spans approximately 45,000km connecting 46 cable landing stations in 33 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe.
SEA-ME-WE 3 (SMW3) cable system was supplied by ASN and Fujitsu and officially put into service on September 30, 1999.
The SMW3 Consortium comprises 92 telecom operators.
SEA-ME-WE 3 (SMW3) cable system consists of two fiber pairs in its trunk, designed with 8*STM-16 DWDM technology which was the then state-of-the-air technology when it was designed in 1996.
In 2006, 2nd 10G Upgrade was completed which increased Sea-Me-We-3 system capacity significantly.
In May 2007, Sea-Me-We-3 completed the 3rd 10G Upgrade with 48 wavelengths per fiber pair.
In December 2009, the 4th 10G Upgrade increased WDM channels from 48 to 64 per fibre pair.
In 2015, the 5th Upgrade realized capacity expansion with 100G DWDM technologies.
SEA-ME-WE 3 (SMW3) lands at the following 39 cable landing stations in 33 countries:
For the capacity pricing, SEA-ME-WE 3 introduced an innovative Price Incentive Scheme based on the MIU*km concept. For each MIU (i.e. a 2 Mbit/s circuit as the Minimum Investment Unit) between two landing points, the price is equal to the geographical distance between these two points (subject to a minimum of 550 km and to a maximum of 10,000 km) multiplied by the unit cost for a MIU*km. For IRU purchase, the price will be at a Fixed Price of USD50 per miu*km for circuit within any segment in SEA-ME-WE 3.
The TAT-14 is a 15,428 km transatlantic submarine cable system, connecting the United States to the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. The TAT-14 cable system was ready for service on March 21, 2001, and retired on December 15, 2020.
The TAT-14 consortium comprises 11 carriers, namely, AT&T, BT, C&W, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, KPN, MCII, PGE, Sprint, Swisscom and Telia.
The TAT-14 cable lands at:
The TAT-14 cable system consists of four fiber pairs, each initially operating with 40 x 10 Gbps DWDM.
Designed with a partial SDH ring protection network structure, the TAT-14 cable system has a initial system capacity of 1.87Tbs calculated as:
Southern route: 41 x 10Gbs channels + 640 Gbs SDH capacity
Northern route: 18 x 10Gbs channels + 640 Gbs SDH capacity
Total = 1.87 Tbs
TAT-14 was upgraded later to have a total system capacity of 9.38Tbps.
In September 1998, KDD Submarine Cable Systems Inc.(KDD-SCS) was awarded the Supply Contract f as the sole supplier for the TAT-14 Cable Network. The Contract Value was approximately US$1.2 billion (Approximately 170 billion yen). KDD-SCS' subcontractors for the TAT-14 cable project included Mitsubishi Electric Corp., TOSHIBA CORP., Ocean Cable Co., Ltd, etc. At that time, KDD-SCS won contracts for large-scale cable systems in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, including PC-1, JAPAN-US Cable Network, and TAT-14 Cable Network, with a total contract value of approximately 300 billion yen. As a result, KDD-SCS toasted to be the top of the world, superseding its antecessors, ALCATEL Submarine Networks (France) and TYCO Submarine Systems (U.S.A.), in terms of contract amount as well as technology.
In May 2011, Mitsubishi Electric signed a contract to upgrade the TAT-14 Cable Network with 40Gbps DWDM technology.
On December 15, 2020, the TAT-14 consortium decommissioned the TAT-14 cable system, making its lifetime of 19 years and 9 months. The TAT-14 is the first trans-atlantic cable to be decommissioned since the Gemini cable in 2003.
In April 2021, Subsea Environmental Services and Red Penguin Associates (advisors) were awarded the contract to decommission the TAT-14 telecommunications cable system, to remove and recycle of shore-ends in the US, UK, France, Denmark and the Netherlands as well as the deep-water segments in the North Atlantic.
The TPC-5 Cable Network (TPC-5 CN) is the first self-healing trans-Pacific undersea optic fiber ring network. The TPC-5 CN consists two optic fiber pairs, stretching 22560 km, linking six cable landing stations in Japan, Guam, Hawaii and the US mainland. The TPC-5 CN forms a four-fiber-ring automatic protection switching network among the six cable landing stations, each fiber pair capable of 5 Gbps transmission.
The southern route of the TPC-5 CN was put into service in 1995, while its northern route was ready for service on December 31, 1996. The consortium member invested totally US$1.24 billion in the TPC-5 cable network.
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