Terrestrial Cables

The Eurasia Terrestrial Cable Network is an important part of the global telecom infrastructure, consists of various terrestrial cable systems such as TEA, TEA-2, TEA-3, ERA, ERMC, EKA, CR2, etc, with the efforts and cooperation from carriers in China, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and other Asian and European countries, the Eurasia Terrestrial Cable Network has been stable enough to offer bandwidth up to 10G or 10GE with SLA guaranteed.

TEA

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.

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

The TEA terrestrial cable network is a meaningful alternative to the mainly US centric trans-Pacific cable systems in connecting internet networks between Europe and Asia.

TEA-2

The TEA-2 terrestrial cable system is an upgraded cable system of the TEA, connecting major cities in Europe and Hong Kong, Beijing, etc, across Russia via RosTelecom's state-of-the-air terrestrial cable system and connecting to backbones of either China Unicom or China Telecom at the China-Russia Border in Heihe.

The TEA-2 cable system forms an affordable and stable Eurasia broadband internet infrastructure.

TEA-3

The TEA-3 terrestrial cable system runs across Russia via RosTelecom's terrestrial backbone and connecting to backbones of Chinese operators at the China-Russia Border in Manzhouli (Manchuria).

TEA-4

The TEA-4 terrestrial cable system is the latest serie of Rostelecom's TEA terrestrial cable route, including TEA, TEA-2, TEA-3 and TEA-4.

The TEA-4 connects Europe, Russia, Mongolia and China, through the China-Mongolia Border in Erlianhaote (Erenhot).

The TEA-4 shortens latency from China to Europe via Rostelecom's backbone network, being comparable to the Europe-Russia-Mongolia-Asia (ERMC) and the TMP Transit-Mongolia terrestrial routes.

ERJ

The Europe-Russia-Japan (ERJ) is an Eurasia cable route seamlessly combining TTK's terrestrial backbone network across Russia to Europe, and the HSCS cable system between Russia and Japan jointly built by TTK and NTT.

The HSCS was upgraded with 200 Gbps DWDM technology for a total system capacity up to 5.4 Tbps in 2018.

The ERJ cable offers a low latency route from Europe to Japan, with latency (RTD) of 144ms between Tokyo and Amsterdan.

TTK offers other Eurasia terrestrial cable routes to China, Europe-Russia-Asia (ERA) and Europe-Russia-Mongolia-Asia (ERMC) .

ERA terrestrial cable route — ERA and ERJ terrestrial cable routes, Source: TTK

ERA

The Europe-Russia-Asia (ERA) is an Eurasia terrestrial cable system connecting Europe to China across Russia, jointly built by TTK and China Unicom.

TTK and China Unicom build the cross border terrestrial cable system at Manzhouli (Manchuria) in China and Zabaikalsk in Russia.

The ERA cable system is capable of 100Gbps DWDM, offering a low latency Eurasia route:

Hong Kong to Frankfurt: 156ms
China/Russia Border (CRB) to Frankfurt: 98ms.

ERMC

The Europe-Russia-Mongolia-China (ERMC) is an Eurasia terrestrial cable route connecting Europe, Russia, Mongolia and China, jointly operated by TTK and China Unicom via, Mongolia Railway.

TTK, Monglia Railway Authority (RailCom, now GEMNET) and China Unicom operate the ERMC terrestrial cable system via Erlianhaote (Erenhot ) in China-Mongolia Border.

In Mongolia, EMRC runs over 2 parallel optical cable routes of approximately 1000km each, along the railway connecting southern and northern borders of Mongolia along Sukhbaatar-Darkhan-Ulaanbaatar-Choir-Zamyin Uud. It forms OTN network with ROADM nodes and reserve protection in Mongolia.

The ERMC cable system is capable of 100Gbps DWDM, offering a low latency Eurasia route:

Beijing to Frankfurt: 109ms
Hong Kong to Frankfurt: 146ms.

TTK offers other Eurasia terrestrial cable routes, Europe-Russia-Asia (ERA) to China, and Europe-Russia-Japan (ERJ) to Japan.

ERMC and ERK terrestrial cable routes, Source: TTK

TMP

The TMP Transit-Mongolia is a low latency Eurasia terrestrial cable from China to Europe, via Mongolia and Russia.

The TMP terrestrial cable is operated by China Telecom Global (CTG) and its partners in Mongolia and Russia, through the China-Mongolia Border at Erlianhaote (Erenhot ), in a similar route as the Europe-Russia-Mongolia-Asia (ERMC) terrestrial cable.

The TMP terrestrial cable features ultra low latency, with

Shanghai to Frankfurt: 158ms
Hong Kong to Frankfurt: 169ms

Super TSR

The Super TSR (Transit Silk Road) is an ultra low latency Eurasia terrestrial cable route via the China-Kazakhstan Gateway, Khorgos.

The Super TSR was launched by China Telecom Global (CTG) through a partnership with a Kazakhstan operator in 2016.

The Super TSR features ulta low latency:

Shanghai to Frankfurt: 147ms
Hong Kong to Frankfurt: 159ms

TRANSKZ

TRANSKZ is a terrestrial route linking Europe and Asia, and offers low latency and protected services between all major European markets to China and Hong Kong.

TRANSKZ was launched in 2016 in partnership between RETN and Transtelecom JSC.