NTT Com's Japan-U.S. Backbone Bandwidth Reaches 500 Gbps

Japanese telecom operator NTT Communications Corporation yesterday said that it has expanded the data-transmission capacity of its Global IP Network between Japan and the United States to an industry-leading 500 gigabits per second (Gbps).

NTT Communications provides a broad range of global networks, management solutions and IT services to customers worldwide and provides, voice, data and IP services, as well as expertise in managed networks and leadership in IPv6 transit technology.

"The new capacity, equivalent to approximately 30,000 channels of digital terrestrial television or more than four centuries' worth of content in a daily newspaper, further enhances the company's leadership in Tier-1 transpacific IP connectivity," NTT said in a statement.

NTT Communications's global IP backbones are connected to fixed and mobile telecom companies, internet service providers (ISPs), data centre operators and content providers, enabling customers to meet their growing needs for internet capacity between Japan and the United States.

Although a part of the cable was affected following the March 2011 earthquake, it was able to quickly rebound with minimum impact. "This was thanks to the fully redundant cable structure and collaborative efforts with multiple carriers and cable companies, based on an established cooperative relationship," the statement said.

Demand for high-capacity bandwidth has been growing rapidly in recent years, reflected in the seven-fold increase in NTT Com's Japan-US bandwidth between 2005 and 2010.

NTT said this latest jump-from 400 Gbps to 500 Gbps in just a half year-aims to cater to even stronger demand being generated in today's cloud-computing, micro-blogging, social network and online media-intensive environment.

The network, which is compatible with both IPv4 and IPv6 protocols, was one of the core IPv6 networks in this June's World IPv6 Day trial (See: Global test run of next-gen internet protocol IPv6 begins today).