OREANDA-NEWS. NEC Corporation announced the signing of a contract with a purchasing consortium of 13 major telecom operators in the Asia Pacific region to enable the APCN2 (Asia Pacific Cable Network 2) to support 100Gb/s dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) for the first time.

The APCN2 system, with over 19,000km of cable, connects 10 landing stations in the Asia Pacific region and was originally supplied by NEC in 2001 with a 10Gb/s DWDM system design. The system was later upgraded with NEC's 40Gb/s DWDM transmission equipment in 2011 to meet the region's rising bandwidth demands. For this latest upgrade, NEC is implementing its state-of-the-art digital coherent technology in order to achieve 100Gb/s wavelengths, a dramatic enhancement and expansion to the capacity of the existing 10/40Gb/s submarine cable network. NEC estimates that by adding 100Gb/s wavelengths, the cable's capacity can be enlarged by as much as 10 times its original design capacity of 2.56Tb/s, contributing to reduced per unit CAPEX and OPEX for customers.

The upgrade is scheduled to be completed by 1Q of 2014.