Japan-US Submarine Cable System Overview

Japan-US Submarine Cable System or Japan-US Cable Network (Japan-US CN, J-US ) is the first high capacity trans-pacific subsea cable system using DWDM technology of 10 Gbps per wavelength. Japan-US Submarine Cable System consists of four fiber pairs, each operating at 10 Gbps DWDM, with design capacity of 640 Gbit/s (4,096 STM-1's), the equivalent of 7,741,440 simultaneous voice calls, making it the largest capacity cable in the Pacific Region. Initially, the system operated at 80 Gbit/s (512 STM-1's) with two lit fiber pairs, expanding to 400 Gbps (2,560 STM-1's) in mid 2001 by lighting the two remaining fiber pairs each with 16 wavelengths at 10 Gbps per wavelength, further upgraded to 32x10 Gbps DWDM in 2008. In June 2012, Japan-US CN consortium selected Ciena to upgrade with 100G technology.

System Profile

Cable System:

• Japan-US Cable Network, Japan-US CN, JUSCN or J-US

Cable Length:

• 21,000 Km

Design Capacity:

• 640 Gbps (four optical fiber pairs, each operating at 16x10 Gbps SDH over DWDM)
• 1280 Gbps (upgraded to 32x10 Gbps DWDM in 2008)
• > 6Tbps (upgrade with Ciena 100G technology. added additional 5Tbps capacity)

Lit Capacity:

• 1280 Gbps

Commencement of Service:

• August, 2001

Investment Type:

• Consortium

Initial Investment:

• US$ 1.03 billion

Owner(s):

33 consortium members from 11 countries and regions, including:

• Kokusai Denshin Denwa (KDD)
• NTT
• Japan Telecom (Softbank)
• AT&T
• GTE INS
• Level3
• MCI Worldcom
• Qwest
• SBC Communications Inc.
• Sprint Corp.
• Teleglobe
• Pacific Gateway Exchange
• BT
• Cable & Wirelss
• KPN
• Singtel
• Telstra
• Telecom Malaysia
• VIATEL
• VSNL
• etc.

Landing Stations:

• Kita Ibaraki, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, NTT
• Maruyama, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, Softbank
• Shima, Mie Prefecture, Japan, KDD
• Point Arena, Manchester, Mendocino County, California, USA , AT&T
• Morro Bay, San Luis Obispo County, California, USA, Worldcom (MCI International)
• Mākaha, Oahu, Hawaii, USA, GTE

Vendors:

• Fujitsu
• Ciena (for the upgrade with 100G technology)