(6 March 2008 8:00 pm)

BANGALORE: A consortium of six international companies are building a high-bandwidth subsea fiber optic cable, linking the United States and Japan.

Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, Google, KDDI Corporation, Pacnet and SingTel will be spending $300 million to construct the new Trans-Pacific infrastructure.

Unity, the new cable system, will address the surging broadband demand by providing capacity to sustain the unprecedented growth in data and internet traffic between Asia and the United States.

Unity is expected to initially increase Trans-Pacific lit cable capacity by about 20 per cent, with the potential to add up to 7.68 Terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth across the Pacific.

"The Unity cable system allows the members of the consortium to provide the increased capacity needed as more applications and services migrate online, giving users faster and more reliable connectivity,” said Unity spokesperson Jayne Stowell.

The new 10,000km Trans-Pacific cable will provide connectivity between Chikura, located off the coast near Tokyo, to Los Angeles and other west coast network points of presence. At Chikura, Unity will be seamlessly connected to other cable systems, further enhancing connectivity into Asia.

The Unity consortium selected NEC Corporation and Tyco Telecommunications to construct and install the system during a signing ceremony held in Tokyo on 23 February, 2008. Construction will begin immediately, with initial capacity targeted to be available in the first quarter of 2010.

The new five fiber pair cable system can be expanded up to eight fiber pairs. Each fiber pair is capable of carrying up to 960 Gigabits per second (Gbps). By having a high fiber count, Unity hopes to offer more capacity at lower unit costs.