Google's Internet Cable Spanning the Pacific Ocean Goes Online With Blazing Speed
Google, five other companies laid cable from Oregon to Japan.
— -- The largest ocean in the world wasn't going to get in Google's way.
An undersea cable backed by Google and five other companies is going online today for the first time, marking the beginning of faster internet speeds for users in Asia.
The $300 million project began in 2014, connecting Oregon and Japan with an undersea cable that would handle an initial capacity targeted at 60 terabits per second, allowing users in Asia to enjoy speedier connections.
"Internet users and our customers in Japan today should notice things seem to be moving a bit... FASTER," Urs Holzle, Google's senior vice president of technical infrastructure said in a Google+ post. "FASTER is one of just a few hundred submarine cables connecting various parts of the world, which collectively form an important backbone that helps run the Internet."
It's not the first time Google has gone underwater to improve internet speed. In 2008, the company invested in cable that connected Southeast Asia and Japan.
The company also backed UNITY, another trans-Pacific cable system between the United States and Japan that debuted in 2010. The cable has a capacity of 7.68 terabits per second, according to Submarine Cable Networks, meaning that the newest cable blows it out of the water when it comes to capacity.
Facebook and Microsoft announced in May they'll team up to lay an undersea cable system across the Atlantic Ocean that will deliver faster connections to online and cloud services from both companies.
Construction of that cable, called MAREA, will begin in August, according to a statement from both companies, and is expected to be completed in October 2017. MAREA, which is the Spanish word for "tide," will span 4,100 miles from Virginia Beach, Virginia, to Bilbao on the northern coast of Spain.
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