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July 22, 2003
Tokyo July 22, 2003 - NEC Corporation (NEC), announced that the Consortium of NEC, OCC Corporation (OCC) and Global Marine Systems Limited (GMSL) headed by Sumitomo Corporation, received order to build submarine fiber optic cable system connecting Seward, Alaska and Warrenton, Oregon for General Communication, Inc (GCI). The construction is a major part of the US$ 50million investment by GCI. The 1,544-statute mile cable has a total design capacity of 640 Gigabits per second access speed and is planned to be operational by May 2004.
When the system is completed in 2004, it will deliver a minimum of 258,048 simultaneous clear channel voice or data circuits at transmission speeds of 20 billion bits per second. As demand increases, capacity can be increased to support a minimum of 8,257,536 simultaneous clear channel voice or data circuits at speeds of 640 billion bits per second.
Fiber optics is the preferred method of carrying voice, video or data communications. It allows for optimization of transmission performance because of its lack of latency. Its superior information carrying capacity enables the deployment of new, bandwidth hungry applications such as faster Internet, Broadband ISDN and video conferencing.
The new cable will be configured in a SONET ring with the current system, which provides alternative routing and overflow traffic handling capabilities. Manufacturing of the cable, landing stations and equipment will begin immediately and the cable deployment is expected to commence in January 2004 with commercial operation by May 30, 2004.
The consortium brings together the strengths of three world-renowned companies. NEC will engineer, manufacture and integrate the system. OCC will produce the undersea cable. GMSL will install the system in the complex marine environment.
"In combination with GCI's Alaska United cable this new fiber optic cable will provide unprecedented reliability for business, education and government users," said Richard Dowling, GCI senior vice president, corporate development. "The project underscores GCI's commitment to Alaska and our continued investment in its future."
"We are extremely excited about being chosen to build this important infrastructure project, and to be working with GCI. We believe this project will have an important impact on the future telecommunications needs of Alaska," said Koji Takahashi, executive marketing manager of NEC. With this experience and results demonstrated in the project, NEC aims to further enter US and Latin America market and keep the current position worldwide".
Based on revenues, GCI (Nasdaq:GNCMA) is the largest Alaska-based and operated integrated telecommunications provider and provides local, wireless, and long distance telephone, cable television, Internet and data communication services throughout Alaska. More information about the company can be found at www.gci.com.
NEC Corporation (NASDAQ: NIPNY) (FTSE: 6701q.l) is one of the world's leading providers of Internet, broadband network and enterprise business solutions dedicated to meeting the specialized needs of its diverse and global base of customers. Ranked as one of the world's top patent-producing companies, NEC delivers tailored solutions in the key fields of computer, networking and electron devices, by integrating its technical strengths in IT and Networks, and by providing advanced semiconductor solutions through NEC Electronics Corporation. The NEC Group employs more than 140,000 people worldwide and had net sales of approximately $40 billion in the fiscal year ended March 2003. For additional information, please visit the NEC home page at: http://www.nec.com.
