Unity Trans-Pacific Cable Nearing Completion

The Unity cable system, which is backed by Google and five other international carriers , reached a critical milestone -- landing of the cable in Chikura, Japan. The cable ship KDDI Pacific Link reached the Japanese coastline in Chikura earlier this week after two months spent laying the newly manufactured cable from the middle of the Pacific Ocean. With all the cable segments in place, the mid-Pacific splice was completed by the cable ship Tyco Resolute on 30 October 2009, and KDDI Pacific Link will complete the final splice to join the cables off the coast of Japan in the coming two weeks. Upon completion of the final splice, there will be a period of intensive end-to-end testing before the system is put into commercial service.


Construction of the system was first announced in February 2008 by the consortium comprised of six international companies, including Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, Google, KDDI Corporation, Pacnet and SingTel. The Unity cable system will add up to 4.8 Terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth across the Pacific with construction cost at approximately US$300 million.


Commercial activation is now anticipated in Q1 2010.
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