Google and five Asian communications firms have agreed to invest about US$300m in a new undersea cable to link the US with Japan.
The consortium also includes China Mobile, China Telecom, Malaysia’s Global Transit, Japan’s KDDI and Singapore-based…
Google and five Asian communications firms have agreed to invest about US$300m in a new undersea cable to link the US with Japan.
The consortium also includes China Mobile, China Telecom, Malaysia’s Global Transit, Japan’s KDDI and Singapore-based SingTel, while Japanese conglomerate NEC is the project’s system supplier.
Called FASTER, the new Trans-Pacific cable system has an initial design capacity of 60Tb/s and expects to be ready for service in Q2 2016.
Woohyong Choi, chairman of the FASTER executive committee, said: “The FASTER cable system has the largest design capacity ever built on the Trans-Pacific route, which is one of the longest routes in the world. The agreement announced today will benefit all users of the global internet.”
It marks Google’s latest move to build out its own telecoms infrastructure.
The search engine giant currently offers fibre in four cities in North America, after first launching in Kansas City back in 2012. The group has been rumoured to be considering expanding the services into Europe for some time, and last month it was reported to be looking at ways to break into the UK.
