The Hong Kong-Americas (HKA) consortium and Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) have signed a contract for the deployment of the Hong Kong-Americas (HKA) submarine cable network, which will span more than 13,000 kilometers. This new open cable system is designed to increase connectivity between Hong Kong and the US. The HKA consortium includes China Telecom, China Unicom, Facebook, Tata Communications, and Telstra as the major parties.
The HKA system will feature six fiber pairs and will connect from Chung Hom Kok in Hong Kong to Hermosa Beach in California. Additional connectivity options may be exercised in future. The target completion date for the HKA System has been set for 2020.
The service will leverage ASN's submarine WSS ROADM units, the latest generation of repeaters and will enable over 80 Tbps transmission capacity. In addition, it is also compatible with future generations of submarine line terminal equipped with Probabilistic Shaping capabilities.
