QINGDAO, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- The main body of a new submarine fiber cable system, called the Trans-Pacific Express (TPE), kicked off its construction at sea in Qingdao, a coastal city in east China, on Monday.

The new cable, the first to directly link the United States and China by skipping over Japan, is expected to be put into use in July next year before the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games on August 8.

It would become the submarine fiber cable with the largest capacity and the longest span for China, linking the Chinese mainland with Taiwan, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the United States.

The TPE would use the latest optical technologies to provider greater capacity and higher speeds to meet the rapid increase in demand for IP, data and voice communications between the Asian regions and the U.S.

The initial installed capacity of the TPE is set at 1.28 terabits per second and its design capacity could reach 5.12 terabits per second.

"There would be around five billion people worldwide to watch the Beijing Olympics on TVs in 2008, and the completion of the TPE would help satisfy the needs for greater capacity," said Guan Ruoqi, a manager from the China Netcom.

The landing of TPE at Qingdao would make it more convenient for the transfer of data and voice communications from Beijing to overseas destinations, as in the past there were only exits at Chongming Island near Shanghai and Shantou in Guangdong.

The TPE will not go across regions near Taiwan that are vulnerable to earthquakes to make the route safer.

Chinese Internet users suffered from difficulties in getting access to many web sites that have servers overseas when an earthquake near Taiwan caused damages to submarine cables at the end of last year.

The TPE was jointly constructed by three of the Chinese mainland's major telecommunications operators - China Telecom, China Netcom and China Unicom, along with Taiwan's Chunghuw Telecom, Korea Telecom from ROK, and the U.S.-based Verizon.