APCN-2 to Upgrade with 40G DWDM Technology

According to news press from NEC Corporation (NEC) on July 7, 2010,  NEC has signed a multi million-dollar contract with APCN-2 consortium to upgrade the APCN-2 submarine cable system with 40Gbps DWDM technology, developing the world's first 40Gbps application in a long-distance large scale submarine cable system.

The APCN2 (Asia Pacific Cable Network 2), with over 19,000km of cable that connects 10 landing stations in the Asia Pacific region, was originally supplied by NEC in 2001 with a 10Gbps DWDM system design. In response to the rising transmission demands in the region, NEC proposed its state-of-the-art 40Gbps DWDM technology as a dramatic enhancement and expansion to the capacity of the existing 10Gbps submarine cable network. NEC estimates that by adding 40Gbps wavelengths the cable's capacity can be enlarged by as much as 4 times its original ultimate design capacity of 2.56Tb/s. 

The APCN-2 40G upgrade is scheduled to be completed by 2Q of 2011. 

The APCN-2 consortium consists of fourteen carriers in the Asia Pacific Region, including AT&T, China Telecom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, C&W, KDDI, KT, NTTCom, PLDT, Reach, SingTel, Softbank Telecom, StarHub and TM.