Sakhalin-Hokkaido Cable System to Be Commissioned

MOSCOW. April 23. VOSTOK MEDIA – Russia’s JSC TransTeleCom (TTC), affiliate of the JSC Russian Railways, and the largest telecommunications operator of Japan NTT Communications (NTT Com) finished the construction of the world’s most powerful communications system that joined the telecommunications networks of the two countries, the Gudok newspaper reports.
With completion of the Hokkaido-Sakhalin cable system (HSCS) construction of the Asian part of the EurasiaHighway route was finished. The route is based on TTC network which is 55 000 km long. The project will be commissioned in summer of 2008.
The EurasiaHighway route is an alternative to the transcontinental underwater cable systems laid in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The route is more profitable because of such factors as reliability and speed of data exchange.
The commissioning of the network will help Russia to use its geographical benefits as a unique information and transport corridor between Europe and Russia. Experts say, the volume of the Eurasian data transit market will account for nearly $1.5 billion. By 2011 TTC will be able to control 15% of the market.
The underwater cable system with its total length of 570 km and capacity of 640 Gbyte/sec is based on dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology. The pilot start of the system was carried out as early as December of 2007.