The SJC system will cover a distance of 8,900km and will link Brunei, mainland China, Hong Kong, Philippines, Japan and Singapore. The project still retains the option to extend further to link Indonesia and Thailand, which would add an extra 1,800km to the cable system and link a total of eight countries or territories to the network.
The supply contract for the new international cables has been shared between two contractors: SubCom and NEC. The system is expected to be ready for service in the second half of 2013, and is intended to bring more available bandwidth to Asia to support future applications and next-generation technologies.
The SJC consortium is composed of Brunei International Gateway, China Telecom, China Telecom (Hong Kong), Donghwa Telecom, Globe Telecom, Google SJC Bermuda, KDDI, SingTel, PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Telemedia Pacific and TOT Public.
Ooi Seng Keat, chairman of the SJC executive committee, said, "The SJC is carefully designed to serve as many direct circuits between the landing points/POPs and is routed nearer the northern part of the Philippines, thereby avoiding an area that is frequently stricken by earthquakes. The SJC will enable members of the consortium to meet the growing demands of the region, not just for increased internet usage, but bandwidth intensive applications such as internet TV, games and enterprise data exchange."
