Hokkaido-Sakhalin Cable Activated -- Shortest Fiber Route from Tokyo to Europe

Russia's TransTeleCom and NTT Communications activated commercial service on the Hokkaido-Sakhalin Cable System (HSCS), which directly links the two companies' telecom networks via an undersea cable between Nevelsk, Sakhalin in Russia and Ishikari, Hokkaido, Japan, began commercial operation on July 3.




The two companies jointly started to construct the fiber-optic submarine cable HSCS in 2007 and the work was completed in December 2007. HSCS measures 570 km in length and has a capacity of 640 Gbps.


The carriers noted that this cable established the shortest fiber route between Japan and Europe. Alternate routes travel through southern Asia and the Indian Ocean or trans-Pacific, via the United States, and then trans-Atlantic.


The HSCS route will be added to the backbone of NTT Com's secure, scalable Arcstar Global IP-VPN Service (MPLS) beginning August 2008.http://www.ntt.co.jphttp://transtk.ru/www/nsf/esite.nsf/