OREANDA-NEWS. NEC Corporation announced today the signing of a contract with the South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 5 (SEA-ME-WE 5) consortium, comprising of 15 leading telecom operators to deploy a new 100 gigabit per second (Gbit/s) undersea cable system. The SEA-ME-WE 5 system will span 20,000 km from Singapore to Europe, and will deliver ultra-broadband capacity and faster access to consumers and businesses.

Broadband traffic is growing exponentially as the appetite for new applications like cloud computing and on-demand video is becoming limitless. Furthermore, the demand for new connectivity reflects an end-user and business environment in which ultra-broadband access is essential for sustainable growth and development.

Answering these needs, the SEA-ME-WE 5 system will deliver a design capacity of 24 Terabits per second (Tbit/s). The system will span 20,000 km connecting Singapore to France via Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Djibuti, Yemen, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Italy. NEC will be deploying the segment spanning from Singapore to Sri Lanka, while our co-contractor Alcatel-Lucent will be deploying the Sri Lanka to France segments.

Ms. Linette Lee, Chairperson of the SEA-ME-WE 5 Management Committee said: "As more data, applications and services move to the cloud, we need a more dynamic and agile way to serve end-users according to low-latency and quality-of-service that cannot be solved by bandwidth alone. We are confident that Alcatel-Lucent and NEC's 100G undersea technology will provide us with the flexibility to address the increasing requirements for connectivity, as well as address new growth areas such as cloud computing for remote access."

"We congratulate the Purchasers on this occasion and look forward to building the SEA-ME-WE 5 Cable System," said Mr. Naoki Yoshida, General Manager of the Submarine Network Division at NEC. "We are very proud that with this new cable, we will be able to contribute to the economies of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. NEC will continue to dedicate its strength to the development of telecommunication infrastructure in these and other regions across the globe."

SEA-ME-WE 5 is scheduled to be completed by early 2016.