Google, five other firms team up to build cable under PacificAugust 12, 2014 - 16:40 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Google and five other large companies are teaming up to build a cable under the Pacific Ocean that will deliver incredibly fast internet speeds, BBC News reports. The cable, dubbed Faster, will connect the U.S. with Japan and cost about $300mln (225mln euros), the consortium said. The trans-Pacific fiber cable would deliver speeds of 60 terabytes per second - enough to send more than 2,000 uncompressed HD films a second. The cable will be operational by 2016. Google is working with a host of Asian telecoms giants - China Mobile, China Telecom, Global Transit, KDDI, and SingTel. "Faster is one of a few hundred submarine telecommunications cables connecting various parts of the world," said Woohyong Choi, chairman of the consortium's executive committee. "These cables collectively form an important infrastructure that helps run global internet and communications. 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 cable will connect Chikura and Shima in Japan to the major hubs on the west coast of the U.S. - Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. Submarine cables are integral to the structure of how the worldwide web works. In 2008, communications between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia were seriously disrupted after submarine cables were severed near the Alexandria cable station in Egypt. Sixty-five percent of net traffic to India was down at the time. And KDDI, Japan's second-largest telecoms operator, had to do extensive work to repair undersea cables damaged in the massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Google already offers high-speed internet access directly in the U.S. through its Fiber service, with speeds of 1Gbps in cities like Austin, Texas, and Kansas City, Kansas. But the speeds from the new Faster cable far surpass anything consumers can access in most of the U.S. and Europe, though internet speeds are generally much faster in Asia - South Korea wants to see citizens equipped with 1Gbps connections by 2017, for example. Top stories Yerevan will host the 2024 edition of the World Congress On Information Technology (WCIT). Rustam Badasyan said due to the lack of such regulation, the state budget is deprived of VAT revenues. Krisp’s smart noise suppression tech silences ambient sounds and isolates your voice for calls. Gurgen Khachatryan claimed that the "illegalities have been taking place in 2020." Partner news Most popular in the section | Titus, Bilirakis lead legislation to sanction Azerbaijani war criminals Representatives Dina Titus (D-NV) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) have introduced the bipartisan legislation. Azerbaijan must respect human rights, Scholz tells Aliyev German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for greater respect for human rights in Azerbaijan. Armenia: Defense Ministry warns against involving army in political processes The Ministry’s statement came after a video surfaced online, showing soldiers joining the protests in Tavush. Scholz hopes Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty will be signed this year German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hopes that a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be signed this year. |