Tyco Telecommunications and NEC Begin Construction of Unity Cable System

Tokyo, June 24, 2008 – Tyco Telecommunications (US) Inc. and NEC Corporation today announced the commencement of construction on the Unity Cable System, a high-bandwidth, trans-Pacific, optical submarine cable system that will link Los Angeles, U.S. to Chikura, Japan. The contract for the project was signed on February 23, 2008, between the Unity Consortium, comprising of six purchasers, Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, Google, KDDI, Pacnet and SingTel and suppliers Tyco Telecommunications and NEC Corporation.

“Tyco Telecommunications is proud to be a system supplier for the Unity Cable System, a state-of-the-art long haul system that will provide additional connectivity and capacity between regions of the world that increasingly require more bandwidth,” said Bill Marra, General Manager of Tyco Telecommunications.

The Unity Cable System is a multi-fiber pair system, with each fiber pair capable of carrying up to 960 Gigabits of data per second. Tyco Telecommunications and NEC will each manufacture a portion of the undersea system. Tyco Telecommunications will install the undersea cable from the U.S. end and NEC will install the undersea cable from the Japan end. The cables will be interfaced on the seabed of the Pacific Ocean.

"NEC is extremely excited to take part in this significant cable build, which will provide high speed connectivity between the U.S. and Japan. We truly believe this cable will become the backbone of the Pacific information highway," commented Osamu Harada, General Manager of NEC's Submarine Network Division.

The Unity Cable System will meet the demand for connectivity between the U.S. and Japan that has been increasing since the activation of the last trans-Pacific system in 2002. Additionally, the Unity Cable System will connect to various intra-Asian cable systems, to facilitate seamless connectivity to other major cities in Asia.