The $400 million, 11,000km system will offer 240Tbps of capacity with 400Gbps optical wavelength-division multiplex transmission, all designed for future expansion. It has been given an RFS date of June 2022.
The new system will form part of the company’s new strategic partnership with Fund Corporation for the Overseas Development of Japan’s ICT and Postal Services (JICT) and WEN Capital (WEN), to create newly formed company Orient Link announced in October.
“Businesses and individuals from all over the world are experiencing the accelerated growth of digital connectivity - and this is especially true within Asia,” said Jason Goodall (pictured), chief executive officer, NTT. “Globally, India and South East Asia are some of the world’s fastest-growing economies. As digital investment and demand for data capacity continues to increase, providing access to reliable connectivity will remain critical to accelerate economic and social growth. The implementation of MIST will ultimately allow us to work with our clients around the world to build a truly connected future.”
NTT will leverage its existing data centre footprint in Singapore, Myanmar and India by landing the MIST cable directly into its carrier-neutral data centre ‘through large-capacity fibre which will be owned, built and operated by NTT Ltd’. In addition, the company will ‘maintain and operate all the landing stations.’
Additionally, the MIST system will have branching units that use Wavelength Selective Switching Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Multiplexing (WSS ROADM) that enables fast and flexible remote switching of transmission routes. This in turn will enable the instantaneous switching of different routes to ensure business continuity and uptime in the case of a natural disaster.
Due to the exponential growth in demand for data capacity in Asia as well as cloud services, and for future 5G communications, NTT says that this expansion of its subsea infrastructure will help to meet this demand. MIST joins the likes of Asia Submarine cable Express (ASE), Asia Pacific Gateway (APG), Pacific Crossing -1(PC-1) and the JUPITER cables in NTT portfolio of subsea systems.
Capacity recently spoke to Hajime Miyazaki, director of corporate strategy and planning, NTT about the new Orient Link project and the key drivers behind expanding into the South East Asia region.
