Submarine fiber optic cable system to connect Guam, Okinawa, Kyushu and Incheon

Aug 25, 2011

Japan's Okinawa and Kyshu will get connected to Guam and Incheon of South Korea though a submarine fiber optic cable. Global telecom giant AT&T has given contracts to Xtera Communications Inc. and Kokusai Cable Ship Co. Ltd to build the fiber optic submarine cable network, which is known in short as GOKI, abbreviated form of Guam, Okinawa, Kyushu, Incheon.

Globally leading optical networking solution provider Xtera Communications is expertized in network infrastructure that delivers maximum capacity, reach and value. Xtera offers an extensive portfolio of optical and IP networking solutions for submarine, long-haul, regional, metropolitan network applications and IP networking solutions for enterprise applications and provides solutions for enterprise and telecom companies. Xtera has experience in deployment of their solution in all five continents.

Established in 1966, Kokusai Cable Ship Co., Ltd. (KCS) is a subsidiary of Japanese telecommunication operator KDDI. KDDI owns 100% of KCS. KCS specializes in the installation and maintenance of submarine cables, oceanographic surveys and research.

The responsibilities of each companies have been defined. Xtera will provide project management, system design, system integration and the Submarine Line Terminal Equipment (SLTE). KCS will recover and re-lay portions of Transpacific-5 (TPC-5) and a retired regional submarine cable. KCS will be responsible to supply new cable and submerged equipment. TPC-5CN is a 22,500km long submarine telecommunications cable system with a transmission capacity of 5Gbps that links Japan, Guam, Hawaii and mainland USA that have landing points in Ninomiya, Kanagawa and Miyazaki in Japan, Bandon, Coos County, Oregon, San Luis Obispo, California, Keawaula/Yokohama Beach, Waianae, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii in United States and Tumon and Tamuning in Guam.

KCS has been engaged in installation and maintenance of submarine cables. KCS offers a wide range of services such as installation of earthquake detection systems in nearby seas in Japan, a survey on cable burial conditions and whale behavior using the autonomous underwater robot, AE2000, and the best route selection for submarine cable laying, in addition to the services using the cable ships.

Xtera and KCS together will build the 4200 km GOKI submarine cable system. The new cable system will combine approximately 1300 km of redeployed cable with remaining sections of the TPC-5 and a retired regional submarine cable. KCS had a successful experience on recovery and re-lay work utilizing a retired cable system in the Japan Sea about 3 years ago. The new submarine cable system will be fitted with Xtera's Nu-Wave XLR regional repeatered SLTE (Submarine Line Terminal Equipment) to maximize capacity. TPC-5 is one of the first generation optically amplified submarine cable system with a design capacity of two 5 Gb/s channels per fiber pair that uses dispersion-shifted fiber.

Dispersion shifted optical fibers complying with ITU-T G.653 was developed to utilize the lower attenuation window of singlemode optical fiber by shifting the zero dispersion wavelengths to 1550nm. This shifting helped to achieve low attenuation window and zero dispersion at 1550nm.. However, as the transmission rate increases and when we use DWDM, zero dispersion causes non-linear effects such as four-wave mixing. The solution to the non-linear effects due to zero dispersion was the introduction of non-zero dispersion shifted fiber complying with ITU-T G.655, which are currently deployed widely in long-haul networks.

The retired regional submarine cable system is a second generation system utilizing wavelength division multiplexers (WDM) to offer a maximum original capacity of 35 Gb/s (14 x 2.5 Gb/s). Xtera is an expert in submarine engineering to address the design challenges associated with deploying a cable system that uses fibers from existing systems with different optical characteristics. With the Nu-wave XLR terminal equipment, the re-engineered system will have a maximum capacity of at least 80 Gb/s (8 x 10 Gb/s). Combining existing and new assets while providing a significant increase in capacity enables AT&T to improve their return on the value of these submarine assets.

The selection of Xtera to supply the SLTE and provide redeployment services including: project management, system design and integration services, demonstrates the company's leadership and expertise in the design of submarine systems and high-performance submarine optical equipment.

Abbreviations and terminologies used:
GOKI: Name of submarine cable system connecting Guam, Okinawa, Kyushu, Incheon.
SLTE: Submarine Line Terminal Equipment.
KDDI: A Japanese telecommunication operator and service provider
KCS: Subsidiary of KDDI
IP: Internet Protocol, a type of communication protocol
TPC-5: Trans-Pacific Cable-5
AE2000: AQUAEXPLORER 2000 is an autonomous underwater vehicle(AUV) which have no control cables with the mother vessel. AE2000 surveys on the seabed in advance of submarine cable laying, and on burial and non-burial cables and is effective for finding out failures which have occurred, or failures which have possibilities to occur in near future.
DWDM: Dense wavelength division multiplexing

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