NEC (News - Alert) Corporation, a provider of networking and IT integration technologies, has won a major contract to upgrade Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2) to support 100Gb/s dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) for the first time.

The contract was awarded by a purchasing consortium that consists of 13 major telecom operators in the Asia Pacific region. They are: AT&T, China Telecom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, Vodafone, KT, NTT Communications, MCII, PLDT (News - Alert), Reach, SingTel, Softbank Telecom, and StarHub.

The cable system, which stretches over 19,000km of cable, connects 10 landing stations in the Asia Pacific region. It was originally supplied by NEC in 2001 with a 10Gb/s DWDM system design.

By adding 100Gb/s wavelengths, the cable's capacity can be enlarged by as much as 10 times its original design capacity of 2.56Tb/s, contributing to reduced per unit CAPEX and OPEX (News - Alert) for customers, according to NEC.

The network upgrade will utilize NEC’s digital coherent technology to achieve 100Gb/s wavelengths, a dramatic enhancement and expansion to the capacity of the existing 10/40Gb/s submarine cable network.

To support this upgrade, NEC will also supply its NEC NS Series T740SW Line Terminal Equipment. The technology will deliver a small foot print of 1.5Tb/s per rack, providing more than 2 times the capacity density as compared to previous 40Gb/s wavelength.

“This upgrade is indeed a significant step for NEC as well as for the industry, as we demonstrate our ability to provide high-quality and state-of-the-art 100Gb/s DWDM products and services on a system designed for 10Gb/s DWDM in order to meet and surpass client demands," said Yasuhiro Aoki, general manager of NEC's Submarine Networks, in a statement.

The upgrade is scheduled to be completed by 1Q of 2014.

In another related announcement, NEC launched a compact, all-in-one LTE (News - Alert) small cell gateway that accommodates approximately 1,000 LTE small cell access points in a single unit.This new gateway enables telecommunications carriers to provide small scale LTE small cell services while supporting the AdvancedTCA (News - Alert) standard and concentrating security, maintenance, user data processing and traffic control functions on one blade.