As predicted in March (CI No 3,358), Tyco Submarine Systems Ltd (TSSL) has won a contract worth $1.2bn to build a fiber optic cable between the United States and Japan. The 80Gb capacity pipe has been dubbed Pacific Crossing One (PC-1). The four segments of PC-1 should form a self-healing ring configuration, with two landing points in each of Japan and the US. The first path should be ready for operation in March 2000 with the full ring following in July 2000. The cable’s real significance is more economic than technical. The first Pacific link to be owned by a non-carrier consortium, PC-1 is a joint venture between TSSL parent company Tyco International Ltd, submarine cable specialists KDD-SCS Inc and Global Crossing (a self-described carrier’s carrier), and Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp. The partners aim to recoup their investment by selling bandwidth wholesale to telcos on both sides of the Pacific. Marubeni also owns a stake in the giant fiber-optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG), perhaps the most celebrated telecommunications venture in the world. FLAG came to fame as the subject of Neal Stephenson’s epic article in the October 1996 edition of Wired.
