Google builds own undersea internet cable
A group of six international companies, including Google Inc. of the U.S., is building a $300 million underwater fiber-optic cable linking the United States and Japan. The 6,200-mile trans-Pacific broadband cable system called Unity will respond to the expected growth in data and Internet traffic between Asia and the U.S., the companies said in a statement Monday. A signing ceremony was held Feb. 23, they said. Besides U.S. Internet search company Google Inc., the Unity consortium includes Bharti Airtel Ltd., India’s leading integrated telecom services provider, and Japanese telecommunications company KDDI Corp.
The others are Malaysian Internet company Global Transit; Pacnet, a telecom company headquartered in Hong Kong and Singapore; and SingTel, a leading Asian communications and mobile company. NEC Corp. and Tyco Telecommunications are suppliers for the project, set to be up and running in the first quarter of 2010. Construction begins immediately, according to the consortium. The cable is expected to initially increase trans-Pacific fiber-optic capacity by about 20 percent, with the potential to add additional bandwidth, the companies said. It will connect Chikura, near Tokyo, with Los Angeles and other U.S. West Coast points, and the system will connect to other Asian cable systems via Chikura, they said. I guess they simply had to do something like this as YouTube continues to grow and consume more and more bandwith…
Source: AP
Comments(37)
Argh! where is the Australia to America cable?
Getting sick of these sh!tty pings.
wicked, perhaps my 100/30 will soon come to use.
u americans might be envious of us but, here in japan there is nothing to connect to, making a fast connection useless (which isn’t exactly true, still though)
+1 for Australia to any-ware to speed things up!
blimp,
you should have rapidshare.jp
:D
I dont know why, but i have some “mythbuster surge” to take that cable disintegrate it, build it again and the plug it to my computer ;] it looks so …. ehmm soo reliable? ;]
+2 for oz
Australia is the arsehole of the third world when it comes to Internet access. I can’t believe how much it costs for so little down there. What a backwater.
that leads me to a new theory: GOOGLE was behind the deep sea cable breaks a month ago. they were evaluating different suppliers for their emergency response time! =)
I herd about japan launching a satilite that can handle the internet at greater speeds. That and ground services can make a company. I n the future we will have to monitor boats closely so they dont destroy the thousands of cables all over the world.
@8 hmm mexico the fastest line its like 1.5mb or some places 2.mb so mexico sucks big time on speeds they should bring that thing to mexico too
“I guess they simply had to do something like this as YouTube continues to grow and consume more and more bandwith…”
Or bit torrent traffic which accounts for more than 35% of total internet traffic
Austrailia? Wheres that?
Not sure why they are wasting money on a physical cable when wireless technologies are becoming the way of the future.
This will be the end of all marine life as we know it. That cable is gonna snap and electrocute all the fishes!
@13 I think Australia is one of the Hawaiian islands.
First the new satellite launched by Japan to greatly increase the communication of Asian countries then this underwater fiber-optic cable which is the same in purpose. Well I hope its for the good of everyone. Oh, hey, I’m from Asia too near Japan, it would really piss me if the project would not include us ^,..,^
@14 david
‘Not sure why they are wasting money on a physical cable when wireless technologies are becoming the way of the future.’
teehee, that’s a good one. you… joker!
@17 jack
the satellite is basically useless for gamers and low-latency applications. so they not _exactly_ serve the same purpose.
best news for us indians in a long time fiannly true reall high speed broadband will be cheaper and achievable
coz at the moment its in a shamefull state
and by the way hell wit youtube stage6 is closing down i am so so sad it had the best quality and huge collection of videos and a community that was growing like hell
sad days ahead coz there no one else to replace this thing
Whats an Australia?Some new species of birds?
@ dog o00o yes it has been spotted hovering over densely populated areas,has a wing span of 40 feet and can swallow a man whole.
BEWARE BE VERY WARE…….
It looks so ridiculously tacky when RLSLOG editors throw in their own quips at the end of a professional article. Good grief.
lol. thank god i aint the 1st poster. or else this lines been _cut_
amazing I CANT WAIT to use it.
@17 the Kizuna satelite is designed to last 5 years, has an altitude of 36.000km (=high ass pings) and costs $342 million.
Laying Cable is still the cheapest and better solution by far.
@14 I sure hope your kidding….
Re all people complaining about AU internet speed:
There is a similar consortium lead by iiNet to build a phat pipe to Guam, which is a central hub in Asia-Pacific to the rest of the world, which means bypassing Telstra all together!
Yay for iiNet. If only they could increase their local dslam stability in my area…
@ 26, Correct, There is still no technology that can carry data wirelessly at the same speeds as a fiber optical cable.
They have lasers that are supposively in the works to create a sort of optical network between the ground and the satelites, but that poses problems with interference and possible environmental effects.
we can only wish to get this kind of connection to australia
australian internet companies are having a laugh with the pricing.
utter crap
what this country needs is a big american isp to come in and distribute its own cable / infrastructure and produce cheaper prices with higher speeds / downloads…guaranteed that they would get sooo many customers that other isps would have to match / beat their packages.
now that would be awesome!
Great news for India!
Wait a minute….
An UNDERWATER cable 6200 mile long cost $300 million, but an interstate through Texas costs £182 BILLION??!?!?!
How the fuq does that work?
Should have been $182 billion.
Well since Japan is so close to Australia, im sure all we have to do to increase bandwidth to Oz is to tap into that cable just above us. As it is i get great speed on torrents download from Japanese peers.
murdock, do rapidshare.jp have game servers?
u see it’s not only to download movies.
tim, really?
i find that very few ppl use torrents here in japan. i had much higher download speed when i lived in europe even though my theoretical download speed was only a 10th of what it is today.
on satellites, i think it will take many years before satellite connections will be faster/cheaper than physical connections. but, sure i have been wrong before.
Go Britian, I’ve got 20 megabits broadband, and Virgin are supplying household fibre optic cables.
Also my broadband monthly charge is the same as I’d earn in about 3 hours work…. about £20
Wait a minute….
An UNDERWATER cable 6200 mile long cost $300 million, but an interstate through Texas costs £182 BILLION??!?!?!
How the fuq does that work?
…………its only a big wire.
6200 miles?
If you got every chinese person and made them stand on each others heads….
…a lot of them would get squashed.
dont forget it feeds on british back packers aswell
-too soon?