NTT Ltd. Unveils Largest Trans-Pacific Submarine Internet Cable Plan

Photo: New company to build and operate submarine internet cable system (photo: NTT Ltd.)

JAKARTA - NTT Ltd. Japan Corporation, Mitsui & Co., Ltd., PC Landing Corp., and JA Mitsui Leasing, Ltd. announced the launch of a new company, Seren Juno Network Co., Ltd. ("Seren"). The established Seren is intended to build and operate JUNO, the new and largest trans-Pacific submarine cable system with a maximum capacity of 350Tbps that will operate between Japan and the United States.

According to leading telecommunications industry analyst firm TeleGeography, global internet bandwidth will increase by 29 percent by 2021.

This growth is expected to continue to increase driven by the adoption of 5G, IoT, and edge computing technologies. Moreover, with the Japan-US cable network at almost full capacity, JUNO is urgently needed to meet the soaring demand for global internet bandwidth.

According to Takanobu Maeda, President and Chief Executive Officer, NTT Ltd. Japan Corporation, with the rapid growth of the global digital economy and increasing demand for cloud solutions and lower latency, the underwater cable sector is increasingly crucial for global internet infrastructure.

"This new submarine cable is the latest joint effort led by NTT in history and prides itself in providing a reliable global internet infrastructure," he said in a release received on Wednesday, July 27.

Japan, located halfway between the US and major Asian markets, plays an important role as a “Data Hub” in the Asia-Pacific region. To that end, JUNO is expected to complement the submarine cable network as well as the key to supporting the global internet backbone, and its further growth in Asia-Pacific countries and around the world.

JUNO, the new trans-Pacific submarine cable system, offers customers several unique benefits, including:

• Using the advanced SDM (Space Division Multiplexing) technology which allows the provision of 20 fiber optic pairs (40 cores) per cable (current conventional technology provides a maximum of 16 fiber pairs or 32 cores).
• Provides a maximum capacity of 350Tbps, the largest among existing cable systems between Japan and the US.
• Offers high resistance by connecting to two separate landing stations between Japan and the US, providing additional security and resistance to potential disturbances due to adverse weather conditions, especially along Japan's coastal areas.
• Provides flexibility, as JUNO can change the amount of bandwidth to each branch route according to demand and in response to evolving customer needs.

Seren will provide fast and reliable network services for major global technology companies, OTTs, telecom operators, and so on, enabling them to strengthen telecommunications capacity between the US and Asia through reliable and secure sales, operations, and management support.

NTT has been a global internet infrastructure development and operations center for many years with a key role in several submarine cable projects, including JUPITER, MIST, ASE, APG, PC-1, APRICOT and now JUNO. JUNO is expected to start operating at the end of 2024.