DOCOMO PACIFIC, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of NTT DOCOMO, Japan’s leading mobile phone operator, announced that construction and end-to-end testing of the 183-mile ATISA submarine fiber optic cable system, connecting Guam to the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) is complete and the system is ready for service.
The ATISA submarine cable (from the Chamorro word atisa meaning: “to illuminate, to accelerate”), which began with the signing of a supply contract in February 2016, was recently brought ashore and connected to the terrestrial fiber networks on Guam, Saipan, Tinian and Rota. The system will come online with an initial operating capacity of 200 Gigabits per second (Gbps) of bandwidth. As presently designed, the total capacity of the ATISA system is 7.2 Terabits per second (Tbps).
DOCOMO PACIFIC will provide connectivity services to enterprise customers beginning today and is pleased to announce that we are already supplying our first enterprise partner, the Commonwealth Port Authority, which operates the Francisco C. Ada Saipan International Airport, with a new high-speed internet connection. ATISA also connects the CNMI to Guam, where local businesses and government agencies can connect to other systems, extending the cable’s reach to the global internet.
DOCOMO PACIFIC selected Japan’s NEC Corporation, a global leader in the integration of IT and network technologies, to design and build the cable. Ciena was selected for its submarine GeoMesh solution, to deliver 100 Gbps wavelengths, and to facilitate new on-demand experiences for users. The Ciena solution can scale to support any communications requirements for the lifetime of the cable. Ocean Specialists, Inc. (OSI), a leading submarine fiber optic cable consulting firm, advised DOCOMO PACIFIC on Project ATISA and provided project management support.
ATISA is now the second undersea cable in the CNMI and the first new system in nearly twenty years. DOCOMO PACIFIC invested over $16 million for the cable itself, and an additional $9 million to modernize and expand its fixed and mobile networks in the CNMI.