English (UK) 
简体中文(中国) According to TE SubCom, the NCP consortium, comprised of China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, KT Corporation, Microsoft, SoftBank Mobile Corp, and TE SubCom, announced on Monday that the New Cross Pacific (NCP) Cable Network has commenced construction. Microsoft takes a seat in the NCP consortium.
Spanning more than 13,000 km, the NCP Cable Network will link Hillsboro, Oregon (U.S.A.) with connectivity to Chongming (China mainland), Nanhui (China mainland), Lingang (China mainland), Busan (South Korea), Toucheng (Taiwan), and Maruyama (Japan). Using state-of-the-art optical amplifier technology to achieve high performance and reliability in the transmission of multiple wavelength channel signals on multiple fiber pairs, the 100G repeatered cable system will deliver up to 80 Tbps of capacity.
"The construction commencement of the NCP cable marks a significant moment for Microsoft and the consortium partners,” said Dave Crowley, Managing Director of Microsoft’s Global Network Procurement.
“TE SubCom is honored to play a key role in a project that will help to provide the infrastructure necessary in such a growing technological region of the world,” said Aaron Stucki, President of TE SubCom.”
NCP will be designed to interconnect with other cable systems in the region to maximize the throughput of data, as well as to support future upgrades, with the expectation for the service to launch in late 2017.
According to former press release by the NCP Consortium members, the NCP Consortium signed the C&MA and Supply Contract in Busan, Korea on October 21, 2014. At that time, Microsoft and Softbank were not released as the NCP Consortium members.
With this milestone announcement and the enrollment of Softbank as its Japan Landing Party, the NCP Consortium is expected to proceed ahead smoothly to build the New Pacific Cross with the largest capacity of 80 Tbps across the Pacific Ocean. The FASTER cable of 60 Tbps trans-pacific capacity takes a back seat.
