PCCW and Consortium Plan Trans-Pacific JUPITER Route

Hong Kong’s PCCW Global, has come together with consortium members Amazon, Facebook, NTT Communications, PLDT and SoftBank to construct JUPITER, a high-capacity cable system that will connect Maruyama and Shima in Japan with Los Angeles and Daet in the Philippines.

With a target ready-for-service date of early 2020, the JUPITER network will deliver a capacity of more than 60Tbps over a route of approximately 14,000 kilometers, utilizing the latest submersible ROADM approach, which employs Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS) technology. JUPITER will provide a greater diversity of connections and enhanced reliability for customers, as well as optimized connectivity to data centers on the West Coast of the U.S.

Trans-Pacific bandwidth demand has more than tripled in just four years, making the timing of the decision to construct JUPITER crucial to the continued provision of cost-effective trans-Pacific communications. Moreover, this demand trend is expected to continue with new, bandwidth-intensive technologies like virtual reality (VR), social-media applications, video streaming and gaming content growing rapidly in popularity.

Marc Halbfinger, CEO of PCCW Global, noted: “Consumers and enterprises continue to require significantly increasing amounts of bandwidth whether for their own applications, or for their interface with content providers, hosting companies and cloud services. The JUPITER network will play a crucial role in serving this increased demand across the key trans-Pacific artery.”