Evolution of Asia Pacific subsea cable capacity

A golden age for APAN’s R&E community

Yves Poppe

BBC meeting (Broadband Backbone Committee)

APAN 45

March 25th-28th 2018, Singapore

Plenty of terabit action continues in AsiaPac

Pg 2

FASTER: launched june 2016BBG: launched july 2016APG: launched nov 2016SEAMEWE-5: launched dec 2016AAE-1 : launched in july 2017SEA-US: launched august 16th 2017

2018: NCP. PLCN, Hawaiki2020: HKA, Jupiter

Source: Telegeography

July 2017: AAE-1 up and running

Goes from Marseille and Singapore and connects 16 countries : France, Italy,

Greece, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Djibouti, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Pakistan,

India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Hong Kong.

25,000 km 100Gbps DWDM technology

with 50Tbps capacity on 5 fiber pairs

from Europe to Thailand,

4 onward to Hong Kong.

Consortium members include: China Unicom, PCCW, Viettel, Etisalat,

Telecom Egypt, Omantel, Djibouti Telecom, Pakistan PTC, Ooredo, Mobily,

Tele Yemen, Djibouti Telecom, OTEGLOBE, Reliance Jio Infocom (India),

Retelit (Italy), Metfone, Hyalroute, Global Transit

Pg 3

APG is the latest intra-Asia workhorse

Asia Pacific Gateway (APG) was launched in November 2016,

100Gbps capable and capacity of 54.8Tbps. Consortium members

include NTT, China Telecom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, KT

Corporation, StarHub, LG Uplus, China Mobile, Viettel, Vietnam

Telecom International, Global Transit, Facebook and TIME dotcom.

Pg 4

New intra-Asia workhorse on the drawing board: SJC2

• Will connect Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan,

mainland China, Korea and Japan.

• Partners are China Mobile International, Chunghwa Telecom, Chuan Wei,

Facebook, KDDI, Singtel, SK Broadband and VNPT

• Design capacity of 144Tbps on eight fibre pairs.

• RFS Q4 2020

Just announced on March 15th 2018

Asia Pac Subsea capacity: 2017 was a banner year

2016 had seen the activation of

• the US-Japan FASTER cable (60Tbs),

• the Singapore-Malaysia-Oman-UAE BBG (Bay of Bengal) cable

• the long awaited SEAMEWE-5

• The intra Asia’s APG.

2017 has seen some major cables and capacity coming on-line

• MCP cable : Malaysia – Cambodia-Thailand with 1.5 Tbps initially, upgradable up to 30Tbps launched in May. Partners are Cambodian provider Telcotech (owned by Ezecom), Telekom Malaysia, Symphony and DTAC. Golden opportunity for R&E in the region.

• TGA (Tasmania Global Access) NZ-Australia : 2 pairs, 20Tbps: March 2017

• ATISA: launched May 2017; 4Tbps capacity: Guam to Northern Marianas

• AAE-1 to Europe with 40Tbps capacity in July 2017

• SEA-US on the US-Hawaii-Guam-Philippines-Indonesia: aug 2017

Pg 6

AARnet co-owner of Indigo cable!

• The Indigo cable combines the previous APX-West (Perth-Singapore) and APX-Central (Perth – Sydney) projects.

• The Indigo consortium comprises Google, Singtel, Telstra, Indonesia’s Indosat Ooredoo, Superloop and AARNet

• Will be supplied by Nokia’s Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), RFS: mid 2019

• Based on a two-fibre pair ‘open cable’ design with spectrum-sharing technology. This will give members the ability to independently proceed with systems as upgrades. Each of the two fibre pairs will have a capacity of 18Tbps, with future increases possible.

• AARnet’s spectrum ownership will give it a staggering potential of 3Tbps between Australia and Singapore!!

Pg 7

An APAN member owns Tbps of subsea cable capacityWaw, awesome

Congratulations, AARNet!

New Transpacific cables coming1. NCP: New Cross Pacific

Will connect China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States

Design capacity; 81.9Tbps; Micosoft is a partner

Supplier: TE Subcom, RFS: mid to late 2018

2. PLCN: Pacific Light Cable Network

direct HK-USA cable. 5 pair, 120Tbps! Will become reality : Google and Facebook invest

RFS : mid to late 2018

3. HAWAIKI: Australia – Hawaii- US West Coast

supplier TE Subcom, 30Tbps design capacity

RFS mid to late 2018

4. HKA: Hong-Kong America

Supplier: Alcatel, 80Tbps design capacity; China Unicom and Chian Telecom, Facebook, Tata, Telstra

RFS 2020

5. Jupiter: Philippines – Japan - USA

US: RFS 2020, TE-Subcom. Facebook, Amazon, PCCW, Softbank, NTT, PLDT

Pg 8

Pacific islands

• Fiji, Tokelau and Kiribati have secured connections to the

60Tbps NEXT submarine cable linking Australia, NZ and the US.

RFS 2019.

• American Samoa, New Caledonia, Fiji and Tonga have joined

Hawaiki (RFS mid to late 2018) linking Australia, NZ and the US

• Tui-Samoa cable network: connects Samoa to Wallis and

Futuna, Vanua Levu (the second largest island of Fiji) and Suva

on the Fiji mainland. RFS jan 2018 (last splice laid on dec 26th

2017).

• Manatua: linking Niue, Samoa, the Cook Islands and French

Polynesia. RFS end 2018

• MOANA cable: NZ to Hawaii via Samoa, 20Tbps, RFS 2018

• NATITUA system: will link Tahiti to eight atolls in the

archipelago of Tuamotu – Rangiroa, Manihi, Takaroa, Kaukura,

Arutua, Fakarava, Makemo and Hao – with two islands of

Marquisas, namely Hiva Oa and Nuku Hiva. NATITUA will extend

the existing Honotua cable system, which connects the French

Polynesian islands of Tahiti, Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea and Bora

Bora to Hawaii (US). 10Tbps , Alcatel

Pg 9

Eurasia Westwards to Europe

• With SEAMEWE-5 and AAE-1 on-line one might expect a

relatively quiet couple of years but…

• EAGLE:

Hk-Th- Mumbai-ME- Italy RFS end 2020, 96Tbs GCX (Reliance

subsidiary). The first section of the cable,, will connect Mumbai

(India) with Hong Kong via Thailand, with branching units to a

number of locations, including Singapore. The second section will

route from Mumbai via the Middle East to Italy.

• AWE:

Australia (Perth) to Djibouti: RFS mid 2019 (financing?)

Pg 10

More projects materializing

• ASC (Australia Singapore Cable): linking Perth-Indonesia- Singapore : RFS date:

august 2018, 30Tbps .

• HK-G: Hong Kong Guam: 48Tbps RFS Q4 2019 connects to SEA-US

• NEXT : Southern Cross project 60Tbps Australia-NZ-USA. Owned by Telecom NZ

(50%), Singtel-Optus (40%) and Verizon (10%) ; will interconnect with existing

Southern Cross cables. RFS end 2019

• MYTHIC: Myanmar-Malaysia-Thailand 20Tbps cap RFS mid 2018 ??

• SEAX-1: Singapore-Indonesia-Malaysia, 24 pairs, a 9.6Tbps RFS Q2 2018, Huawei

• SEAX-2: Singapore- Indonesia - Guam – 10Tbps (financing?)

• MOANA cable: NZ to Hawaii via Samoa, 20Tbps, RFS 2018

• SIGMA: Singapore-Myanmar RFS mid 2019, 32Tbps capacity

• PEACE: Pakistan-Djibouti-Kenya. RFS Q3 2019, Huawei. Financed by China

Development Bank. To connect to Silkroad terrestrial cable.

Pg 11

Elsewhere in the world

• MONET cable: 60Tbps, three pairs, Brazil to Forida: RFS nov 2017

• SEABRAS-1: Brazil to New Jersey: 72 Tbps, RFS sept 2017. ABRB cable (Argentina – Brazil, 48tbps) will connect to Seabras-1. RFS mid to late 2018.

• MAREA: transatlantic, Virginia Beach to Bilbao, Spain; led by Microsoft and Facebook; 160Tbps capacity!! RFS Q1 2018

• SACS : Angola to Brazil where it will connect to Monet: Q4 2018

• HAVFRUE: US to Denmark. RFS Q4 2019 108Tbps capacity. TE-Subcom. Investors include Facebook, Aquacomms

• SAIL: Kribi (Cameroon) to Fortaleza (Brazil),. China Unicom is Partner. 72 Tbps RFS: Q4 2018, Huawei.

• ELLALINK: Brazil-Portugal-Spain: 72Tbps, Alcatel, RFS 2020. Dante and RedClara have a stake under the BELLA project

• CC: China –Chile crossing the Pacific. Three possible routes being evaluated.

• IOX: South Africa- Mauritius-India 54Tbps Alcatel. RFS end 2019

• SAEX-1: SA-Brazil-US RFS early 2020

• CURIE: LA to Valparaiso. TE-Subcom. 100% Google owned!

• QUANTUM: Israel –Cyprus-Greece-Italy-France-Spain: 160 Tbps, RFS oct 2020 will connect to MAREA.

Pg 12

Petabit level transoceanic cables by the mid 2020s?

• With MAREA capacity of 160Tbps coming end of 2017 and the 144Tbps intra-Asia

SJC2 late 2020 the horizon of the late 2020’s to reach petabit level seems passé.

• Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks and Nokia Bell Labs have achieved 65 Tbps

transmission capacity over a 6,600 km single mode fiber using Bell Labs’

Probabilistic Constellation Shaping (PCS) technology with a new modulation

technique to maximize the distance and capacity of high-speed transmission in

optical networks.

• In the meantime Aqua Comms has completed a trial of Ciena’s WaveLogic 3

Extreme transmission technology on their AEConnect which connects NY to

London via Dublin. This confirmed that Ciena’s 150 Gbps per wavelength 8QAM

(quadrature amplitude modulation) technology can already increase most up to

date capacity by 50%.

Pg 13

Banner years for new APAN international capacity

• With two 100Gbps for Japan, two for Australia, one for South Korea and one for Singapore, transpacific REN 100Gbps circutsi now total six!

• NICT and NII are now connected at 10Gbps to Singapore

• Korea KOREN is now connected at 10Gbps to Singapore

• Singapore’s SinGAREN connects 10Gbps with Europe Géant

• India NKN is connected at 10Gbps to Europe and to the USA and also to Singapore.

• LEARN Sri Lanka activated a 1Gbps to Singapore

• October 2017: 100Gbps Singapore – Hong Kong – Japan connectioncame on-line with PCCW as supplier..

• Please advise as I might be missing some recent upgrades.

Pg 14

The rise of international 100Gbps in APAN

• January 2014: 100Gbps challenge by Yves Poppe at APAN37 in Bandung, Indonesia: Connect Asia to America at 100GBps in time for SC14 in New Orleans in november.

• GLIF 2014, Queenstown, NZ: 100Gbps demo with US West-Coast.

• SC14 New Orleans: A*STAR and SinAREN demonstrate 100Gbps connectivity and applications between Singapore and New Orleans.

• September 2015: first operational transpacific 100Gbps R&E connection, costshared between Singapore internet2.

• Today: six 100Gbps transpacific APAN member connections: Japan (2), Australia(2), Korea (1), Singapore (1)

• october 2017: first intra-Asia APAN 100Gbps connectivity with the Singapore- Hong Kong – Japan circuit with mutual back-up and transit agreement in the spirit of the R&E GNA (Global Network Architecture).

• Next on the agenda: 100Gbps to Europe with Asi@Connect? 100gbps Australia –Singapore? 100gbps Taiwan-USA?

Pg 15

16

London, EU

Singapore

Los Angeles, USA

100Gbpsco-funded with

10Gbpsco-funded with

100GbpsTransPAC/Pacific Wave

100Gbpsco-funded withNICT

Tokyo, JP

100GbpsSINET

Convergence of Compute, Storage and CommunicationsCollaboration is crucial for Economic Prosperity

• AI, Deep Learning, machine learning with associated simulations and analysis have become a source of discovery. Areas such as Genomics and personalized medicine require ultra high security and reliability, fast data replication and disaster recovery.

• Exascale computing is seen as the next Frontier with the USA, Europe, Japan and China allocating each in excess of one billion US$ to be the first to reach this milestone by the early 2020’s. The nov 2017 TOP500 list now has 181 petaflop level machines up from 2 in nov 2008.

• To remain relevant to the exascale challenge, Singapore would like to invite APAN members and in particular ASEAN members to build shared HPC resources and the associated network infrastructure to support our researchers in Government and Industry Research Labs and Academia as all research areas are becoming data and compute intensive.

Pg 17

Beyond Networking: APRP Asia Pacific Research Platform

• The vast majority of Researchers are not ad hoc communications specialistsand do not care about VLAN’s or fine tuning GridFTP or Globus throughputrates. They want an easy API to access compute, data or instruments securelyand efficiently, wherever they are located.

• The various disciplines will enjoy the benefits of their own private network running over the shared infrastructure. This is made possible through te use of dedicated systems as data transfer nodes (DTNs) including Performance measurement and network testing systems that are regularly used to characterize and troubleshoot the network and most importantly Security Policies and enforcement mechanisms that are tailored for high performance science environments.

• Operational RP’s are used by various disciplines including weather forecasting, genomics, AI, HEP, astronomy and HPC.

• The final objective: research at the speed of thought

Pg 19

A prediction?

The world will see

Exascale Computing in 2022 and

the first Petabit level

transcontinental data

transmission cable in 2024

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

Erich Fromm