Google to lay £179m 'Faster' internet cable from US to Japan
Google has announced plans to connect Japan and the US with a trans-Pacific internet cable known as ‘Faster’.
Google will develop the cable with the six-company consortium
The internet giant, as part of a six-company consortium with Asian telecom companies such as China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, KDDI and SingTel, will invest in the cable to address intense traffic demands for broadband.
When finished, the cable will deliver speeds of 60 terabytes per second, from Chikura and Shima in Japan to the major cities on the US west coast including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.
Submarine cables such as Faster are vital in providing worldwide internet services, and if damaged can see whole countries denied access to the web.
Woohyong Choi, chairman of the telecom consortium's executive committee, said: “Faster is one of a few hundred submarine telecommunications cables connecting various parts of the world and 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."
Construction of Faster, which will be operational in 2016, has already commenced.
Asian broadband speeds dwarf the UK’s fastest broadband of 152Mbps, however a report last week announced that over one million British households have ‘superfast’ broadband.