TOKYO, Japan and MOSCOW, Russia--NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com), a global ICT solution provider, and Closed Joint Stock Company TransTeleCom (TTC), Russia's leading backbone telecom operator, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) by which the two companies will jointly establish a 500 km high-capacity undersea fiber-optic cable "the Hokkaido-Sakhalin Cable System (HSCS)" that will transmit data at up to 640 Gigabits per second between Ishikari, Hokkaido in Japan and Nevelsk, Sakhalin in Russia, based around Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology. The project will be completed by the end of 2007.

By connecting the HSCS and TTC's 50,000 km transcontinental optical route following that of the Siberian railway and now providing a seamless connection between Europe and Asia, the two companies will realize the shortest uninterrupted link from Tokyo and other parts of Asia to Russia and Europe.

The new route will also function as a rerouting network for the existing route that connects Japan and Europe via the Indian Ocean, providing extra backup in the event of a probable disaster like an earthquake.

The proposed agreement comes in the wake of strong demand for data communications services from multinational companies expanding their business into Russia.

NTT Com and TTC signed a comprehensive agreement last October to interconnect the two companies' MPLS networks, IP Transit and International Private Line. The MPLS network interconnection enabled the companies to increase their network coverage through a seamless international network spanning most of the Asia-Pacific region and Russia.