Google has joined a global consortium of telecom companies to build a new Trans-Pacific cable system called ‘Faster’, which will connect Japan with the west coast of the US at initial speeds of up to 60Tbps.
In addition to Google, the consortium is made up of China Mobile, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, KDDI and SingTel. The companies will invest $300m in the project.
NEC has been awarded a contract to supply the cable system that would make Internet connections faster.
Featuring the high-quality six-fiber-pair cable and optical transmission technologies, ‘Faster’ will help to meet the extreme traffic demands for broadband, mobile, applications, content and enterprise data exchange on the Trans-Pacific route.
The new undersea cable will connect Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, Oregon and Seattle in the US to Chikura and Shima in Japan. It will feature seamless connectivity to extend to other neighbouring cable systems from Japan.
Faster executive committee chairman, Woohyong Choi, said: "Faster is one of a few hundred submarine telecommunications cables connecting various parts of the world.
"These cables collectively form an important infrastructure that helps run global internet and communications. The consortium partners are glad to work together to add a new cable to our global infrastructure.
"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."
Work on the most advanced cross-Pacific cable yet is scheduled to begin immediately, and commissioned for service during the second quarter of 2016.
Google Technical Infrastructure senior VP, Urs Holzle, said: "Along with our previous investments – Unity in 2008 and SJC (South-East Asia Japan Cable) in 2011, Faster will make the internet, well, faster and more reliable for our users in Asia."
