NEC announced a submarine cable deal with The Bay to Bay Express Cable System (BtoBE) consortium to build a submarine cable connecting Singapore, Hong Kong and the United States.

NEC will complete the construction of the nearly 16,000-kilometer optical submarine cable by the fourth quarter of 2020. NEC did not reveal the financial details of the latest contract for building the optical fiber submarine cable network.

BtoBE consortium has China Mobile International, social media company Facebook and cloud provider Amazon Web Services as partners.

BtoBE, featuring multiple pairs of optical fibre, enables transmission of data across the Pacific Ocean with round trip latency of less than 130 milliseconds. BtoBE will contribute to the expansion of communications networks between the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area and Singapore.

NEC in an official statement said that the technology company will use the advanced optical submarine transmission equipment to build the submarine cable network as part of the strategy to improve network redundancy, flexibility and ensuring reliable communications.

“The BtoBE, landing at three locations spanning across the Pacific Ocean, will carry 18Tbs of capacity per fiber pair,” said Toru Kawauchi, general manager of the Submarine Network Division at NEC Corporation.