Contracts have been signed for the fastest ever internet cable link between the US and China.

A consortium of Far Eastern telecoms companies, including China Telecom and China Netcom, have awarded the $500m contract to Verizon Business.

"This state-of-the-art cable will support high-speed traffic to the world's fastest-growing region," said Fred Briggs, executive vice president of operations and technology at Verizon Business.

"In addition to a diverse route directly to China, this cable will add capacity and the higher-speed service customers are demanding.

"We also will improve provisioning intervals and reduce latency for traffic between the US and many countries in the region."

Initially the 18,000km cable will be configured to handle traffic at 1.28 terabits per second (Tbps), but the system will have design capacity of up to 5.12Tbps. Customers can also book individual connections running at 10Gbps.

Cable laying will begin early next year and is expected to be completed by September 2008. It will run from Nedonna Beach in Oregon and finish at Qingdao and Chongming in China, Tanshui in Taiwan, and Keoje in South Korea.