Construction to begin on MIST subsea cable

News and Business

Orient Link (OLL) and NEC have signed an agreement to begin work on the 8,100-km MIST submarine cable system which will link Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and India. The network will have a design capacity of more than 216 Tbps and is scheduled for completion in 3Q22.

OLL is a strategic joint venture company led by NTT Group and established with partners of Fund Corporation for the Overseas Development of Japan’s ICT and Postal Services Inc. (JICT) and WEN Capital Pte. Ltd. (WEN). It targets projects to meet the growing demands for international data traffic across countries in the South East Asia region. With bandwidth demands increasing in the Asia Pacific region, OLL sees a need for the additional interconnection options MIST will provide. The addition of the submarine cable to the region also will improve network redundancy, ensure reliable communications, and expand onward connectivity options in the Bay of Bengal, say OLL and NEC.

Yoshio Sato, CEO, OLL said, “Globally, India and Southeast Asia are among the world’s fastest-growing economies. I am very pleased to announce the launch of MIST, providing a truly connected India to our clients around the world, delivering high-quality, low-latency networks to the people in India as the nation charges forward with its digital transformation roadmap. Not only will MIST respond to the growing demands for inter-[data centre]-connectivity across countries in the Southeast Asia region, but it ultimately allows for OLL to grow its offering and expand into India and beyond. OLL has selected NEC as a supply partner whose extensive experience in expeditiously implementing submarine cable systems will play a key role in our project’s success.”

“We are honoured to be selected as the supplier for MIST together with our local affiliate in India (NEC Technologies India Private Ltd., NECTI). In recent years, we have been supplying the majority of submarine cables in the region and this project enables NEC to continue contributing to advanced infrastructure for serving growing traffic demands,” said Atsushi Kuwahara, general manager, Submarine Network Division, NEC. “Together with NECTI, we intend to fully capitalise on our regional expertise in Southeast Asia and India to ensure the successful completion of this project.”

For more information, visit www.nec.com