Google is investing in a high-speed underwater Internet cable that can transmit data “10 million times faster than your cable modem.”
You won’t see that kind of speed the next time you do an Internet search on your laptop, of course. But the project should help keep data moving quickly between major hubs in the United States and Japan.
Google confirmed on Monday that it’s joining with a group of Asian telecom companies to build and operate a new $300 million fiber-optic cable system, dubbed “FASTER,” that will run under the Pacific Ocean and be capable of transmitting data at 60 terabytes per second.
While it’s one of several hundred underwater cable systems that help connect the Internet around the world, this one “has the largest design capacity ever built on the Trans-Pacific route, which is one of the longest routes in the world,” according to a statement from the consortium that will run the cable.
Google may be best known as a source of Internet search results and other online information, but it’s spent heavily to build the physical infrastructure that allows it to deliver that information to its customers. This will be the third major Pacific cable project that Google has invested in, according to senior vice president Urs Hölzle, who added in a blog post that the latest should make the Internet “faster and more reliable for our users in Asia.”
(H/T to TheNextWeb for spotting this one first.)
(Map showing trans-Pacific route of new project, courtesy of consortium member NEC)
