The 16,000-km optical high-speed cable will link Singapore, Hong Kong and the United States and is expected to be completed by Q4 of 2020. Once completed BtoBE will have multiple fibre pairs enabling high-capacity transmission of data across the Pacific Ocean with round trip latency of less than 130 milliseconds.
"NEC is honoured to be selected by the BtoBE consortium as the turn-key system supplier for this world record-breaking optical fibre submarine cable system that covers the longest distance without regeneration, said Toru Kawauchi, general manager of the submarine network division at NEC Corporation. “The BtoBE, landing at three locations spanning across the Pacific Ocean, is designed so that once completed, it can carry at least 18Tbs of capacity per fibre pair. The BtoBE will provide seamless connectivity and network diversity, while serving to complement other Asia-Pacific submarine cables, among others."
BtoBE will further enhance and contribute meeting the need for expanded communications networks between Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area and Singapore. The cable will be built with advanced optical submarine transmission equipment, improving network redundancy, flexibility and ensuring highly reliable communications.
BtoBE is the first submarine cable directly linking the United States and Singapore and CMI fibre on BtoBE will be linked to its Southeast Asia-Japan 2 submarine cable. In addition, the BtoBE cable system will connect to CMI’s three international data centres in Hong Kong, Singapore and the US.
