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The TEA (Transit Europe-Asia) is a terrestrial cable network between Europe and Asia via the territory of Russia, with its Russian segment running over Rostelecom's DWDM network. The Asian segment of the TEA terrestrial cable network may run over:

  • the territory of China via cross border interconnections between Rostelecom and its Chinese partners (China Telecom and China Unicom); or 
  • the territory of Japan via the Russia-Japan Submarine Cable Network (RJCN) constructed by Rostelecom and KDDI, or
  • terrestrial cable between Russia and Kazakhstan reaching Central Asia countries. 

Transit Europe-Asia (TEA) Cable Network

The TEA terrestrial cable network enables a short latency and stable solution for traffic transiting Europe and Asia.

For example, for the traffic between London and Hong Kong, the roud trip delay (RTD) over the TEA terrestrial cable network is much shorter than the others:

  • TEA – 190 ms 
  • Trans Pacific – 320 ms 
  • Trans Indian - 300 ms 

Typically, the best available latency (RTD) over the TEA between some internet centers are respectively: 

  • London – Tokyo 194 ms 
  • Stockholm – Hong Kong 188 ms 
  • Stockholm – Beijing 156 ms

Latency over TEA

After several nature disasters in Asia region, such as the Taiwan Earthquake in 2006, the Typhoon Morokat and Earthquake in 2008, and the latest Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in March 2011, all of which caused multiple cable cuts and disrupted global internet traffic over international submarine cable systems, the TEA terrestrial cable network becomes a meaningful alternative to the mainly US centric trans-Pacific cable systems in connecting internet networks between Europe and Asia. 

The stakeholders of the transit Europe-Asia terrestrial cable networks have taken measures to upgrade the capacity on the terrestrial network and make it economically feasible for internet traffic:

 

 

Submarine Networks World 2023

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