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Most of us depend on broadband access every day, at work and at home. Laptops, personal computers, tablets and smartphones powered by broadband connections enable us to communicate quickly with family, friends and business associates from around the world, to bank and shop from anywhere, or to simply watch TV. New applications are constantly being added, causing bandwidth demand to grow exponentially each year and which will continue to grow as the internet of things (IoT) expands.
We often take for granted how broadband services are delivered to us in Hawaii, the most isolated population center on Earth. Unseen by most of the world, trans-Pacific fiber cables that lie along the seafloor provide the most economical and efficient means of enabling connectivity to and from Hawaii across the Pacific.
Trans-Pacific cables have been providing telecommunication services to Hawaii for over 50 years. However, the majority of these cables have been retired and the few active remaining cables are close to retirement or have maxed out their capacity. Hawaii was once a necessary stop for these cables crossing the Pacific Ocean to maximize capacity, but technological advances have made it possible for them to bypass our islands and connect the mainland directly to Asia, putting us at risk of running out of capacity. This risk of broadband exhaust was validated by a series of studies conducted by the University of Hawaii Applied Research Laboratory and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in 2012 and 2013 as part of the Hawaii Broadband Initiative.
To mitigate this risk that, if realized, could be detrimental to our state’s economy, Hawaiian Telcom joined six other communications providers in 2014 to build the $250 million Southeast Asia-United States (SEA-US) fiber network, a technologically advanced system using the latest state-of-the-art technology and fiber. After three and a half years of planning, engineering, manufacturing and construction, this system goes into service this month.
The SEA-US cable system is impressive, stretching nearly 9,000 miles from Indonesia to Davao in the Philippines, to Piti in Guam to Makaha in Hawaii, then to Hermosa Beach in California. It purposefully avoids earthquake-prone regions, volcanic hot spots and undersea mountains as it traverses the vast Pacific, even crossing the deepest part of the world’s oceans known as the Mariana Trench.
Engineered for a minimum of 25 years of commercial life, the SEA-US fiber system is an ultra-long-haul, very-high-bandwidth-speed network providing an initial capacity of 20 terabits per second (Tbps) over 100 gigabit-per-second wavelengths. In other words, 20 Tbps enables you to stream 4 million high-definition movies simultaneously. Because of the long commercial life, the system was engineered to keep pace with advances in technology and growing demands of consumers, allowing future bandwidth capacity increases without major overhaul of the undersea system. Physically, the cable and its components can withstand strong ocean currents, ocean storms and harsh corrosive salt environments that it will be exposed to over its lifetime.
By taking the initiative to ensure that the SEA-US cable landed in Hawaii, Hawaiian Telcom is safeguarding Hawaii’s current and future bandwidth requirements necessary to support economic growth, education, job creation, global competitiveness, communications and entertainment for the coming decades.
SEA-US is yet another significant milestone in our company’s more than 130-year history of investing in technology-leading infrastructure. From the first copper trans-Pacific cables ever built over 50 years ago to today’s modern fiber trans-Pacific cables like SEA-US, Hawaiian Telcom continues its tradition of ensuring a bright future for Hawaii, opening countless new opportunities for the people and businesses of this state and creating a path for discovery and innovation.
Daniel Masutomi is director of subsea engineering and network optimization at Hawaiian Telcom. Reach him at daniel.masutomi@hawaiiantel.com.
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