Fujitsu wins high-speed telecoms cable contract

Fujitsu wins high-speed telecoms cable contract

TOKYO (AFP): Japan's biggest computer company Fujitsu Ltd.
said Wednesday it had won a contract to build a US$645-million
high-speed telecommunications cable linking Singapore, Jakarta
and Sydney.

New Zealand-based Nava Networks had contracted Fujitsu to
build the 9,000-kilometer (5,625-mile) undersea fiber-optic cable
by July 2002, the Japanese firm said in a statement.

"The Nava-1 network will provide a high capacity strategic
data connection between Singapore, Indonesia and Australia," the
statement said.

"It will also connect to international cables, effectively
closing the southern hemisphere loop for international systems
between Europe, North America and Asia."

The cable will have transmission capacity of 2.56 terabits
(2,560 gigabits) per second, equivalent to 40 million telephone
lines "or transmission of over 64 full-length feature films of
DVD quality video per second."

"There is a strong demand for bandwidth in Southeast Asian and
Australian telecommunications markets, and the demand is expected
to grow considerably in the next few years," said Nava Networks
sales director Brett O'Riley.

The network would be crucial to telecoms firms, Internet
service providers, e-commerce and web broadcasters, he said.

A spokesman declined to confirm how much Fujitsu would earn
from the project, which has a total budget of 645 million
dollars.

Fujitsu rival NEC Corp. has won contracts to build the control
systems for two other Asia-Pacific telecoms cables currently
under construction, which will earn it more than 1.1 billion
dollars.

The bigger of the two, a 14,000-kilometer (8,750-mile) East
Asian system connecting China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and
Taiwan, will also have capacity of 2.56 terabits per second.