PLDT to support 60 Terabit/s to US and Japan with US-Transpacific Jupiter Cable
Philippine telco PLDT will activate the US-Transpacific Jupiter cable system by July this year, and is expected to further enhance delivery of services and improve customer experience.
The addition of the Jupiter cable system to PLDT’s infrastructure greatly boosts the telco’s extensive fiber network, providing greater capacity in multiple Terabits per second to customers as well as cable diversity to ensure ability to re-route traffic in the event of undersea cable cuts.
“Investments on infrastructure like Jupiter allow PLDT to provide the vital connectivity that powers our digital economy, enabling us to help transform the country into a globally competitive and digitally-empowered nation,” PLDT and Smart FVP and Head of Enterprise Business Group Jojo G. Gendrano said.
“Specifically, this will fortify the Philippines’ position as the next strategic data center hub for global hyperscalers,” Gendrano added.
PLDT’s investment in the Jupiter cable system increases and reinforces the capacities and the resiliency of the telco leader’s existing undersea fiber links, to deliver massive amounts of data traffic going in and out of the country to the US.
Jupiter uses an “open cable model,” which allows consortium members to increase their capacities as needed by investing in technologies that boost data throughput. It terminates in Maruyama and Shima, Japan; Los Angeles (Hermosa Beach) and Pacific City, USA; and Daet, the Philippines, for a total cable length of about 14,600km. It consists of 5 fiber pairs in the main trunk connecting Maruyama and Shima, Japan and Los Angeles. The Jupiter cable system was intially designed with 400Gbps DWDM, for a total system capacity of 60Tbps, or 12Tbps per fiber pair. its main trunk has been ready for service as of May 2021.
Currently the largest among Philippine telcos, Jupiter is anticipated to increase PLDT’s international capacity of 20 Terabit/s to about 60 Terabit/s to US and Japan further establishing its lead, and ready to scale with the growing demands of digital services. These include the delivery of Cloud services, Fintech, and rich media content, which seamlessly complements PLDT’s existing fixed and mobile services.
The Jupiter Cable system is a joint project of global providers spanning 14,000 kilometers from the US to the Philippines bringing PLDT’s total number of international cabling systems to 17.
Jupiter is key to enhancing PLDT’s cable network resilience, increasing the PLDT Group’s submarine cable route diversity, and helps assure customers with sustained capacity availability in support of their growing demand for data and continuing digital transformation.
Currently, PLDT operates the country’s most extensive international submarine cable network and is set to expand further with the completion of two more major international cable systems namely Asia Direct Cable (ADC), and the APRICOT cable system set to be completed in the next two years.
References: