ERA and HSCS Broaden the Eurasia Highway

Upon completion of the Hokkaido-Sakhalin Cable System (HSCS), it forms not only the first high capacity telecommunications infrastructure between Japan and Russia, but also an alternative route for Eurasia Information Highway with the seamless interconnection of the HSCS submarine cable and the Europe-Russia-Asia (ERA) terrestrial cable.

Compared with the first submarine cable between Russia and Japan, the RJK (Russia-Japan-Korea) submarine cable system with maximum capacity of 1.12 Gbps, the commercial operation of the Hokkaido-Sakhalin Cable System (HSCS) significantly enlarges the telecommunication capacity between Russia and Japan up to 640 Gbps.

With the seamless combination of the Hokkaido-Sakhalin Cable System (HSCS) and the Europe-Russia-Asia (ERA) terrestrial cable, TTK and NTT can offer an alternative route for the Eurasia Highway, with a latency comparable to that of the terrestrial cable route via China and Russia and much lower than those via Indian Ocean and Trans-Pacific. Following figure shows the latency or round trip delay (RTD) over different routes of the Eurasia Highway.

Take Hong Kong and London as two ends of the traffic, the latency or round trip delay (RTD) over different routes of the Eurasia Highway is approximately:

• 191 ms over the ERMC (Europe-Russia-Mongolia-China) route.
• 200 ms over the ERA (Europe-Russia-China) route.
• 250 ms over the TEA (Transit Europe Asia) route via China.
• 247 ms over the HSCS and ERA route via intra-Asia submarine cables.
• 300 ms over the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean submarine cable route.
• 350 ms over the trans-pacifc submarine cable route via the US continent and the Atlantic.

On the other hand, the activation of another submarine cable connecting Japan and Russia, the Russia-Japan Cable Network (RJCN) which was launched two months after the Hokkaido-Sakhalin Cable System (HSCS), further enhences the diversity of the Eurasia Highway via Japan.