NEC to upgrade APCN2 submarine cable

Submarine cable operator APCN2 will upgrade its 19,000 kilometre network capacity from 10 Gb/s to 40 Gb/s line terminal technology.

NEC, which supplied the original 10 Gb/s dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) design, will do the upgrade.

It was expected to be completed by the second quarter of next year and cost millions of dollars, the company said.

The Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2) has 10 landing stations in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan.

It links Australia through the Australia-Japan Cable (AJC).

"In response to the rising transmission demands in the region, NEC proposed its state-of-the-art 40Gb/s DWDM technology as a dramatic enhancement and expansion to the capacity of the existing 10Gb/s submarine cable network," NEC said.

"NEC estimates that by adding 40Gb/s wavelengths the cable's capacity can be enlarged by as much as four-times its original capacity of 2.56Tb/s."