WASHINGTON – An undersea cable backed by Google and Asian companies aimed at boosting trans-Pacific broadband was put into service on Thursday, the consortium announced.
The 5,600-mile (9,000-kilometer) FASTER Cable System is aimed at meeting the growing demand for broadband Internet connections between North America and Asia.
“From the very beginning of the project, we repeatedly said to each other, ‘faster, Faster and FASTER,’ and at one point it became the project name, and today it becomes a reality,” said a statement from Hiromitsu Todokoro, chairman of the FASTER management committee.
Built by Japan’s NEC Corporation, the project was backed by China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, Google, KDDI and Singtel.
Kenichi Yoneyama, project manager at NEC’s submarine network division, said, “This epoch-making cable will not only bring benefits to the United States and Japan, but to the entire Asia-Pacific region.”
Singtel vice president Ooi Seng Keat said the new cable “provides continuous connectivity and sufficiently high capacity for cloud, video streaming, analytics and the Internet of Things, that will help spur innovation on both sides of the Pacific to stimulate the growth of the digital economy.”
The project was announced in 2014 with the cost estimated at $300 million.
The cable lands in the US state of Oregon and two points in Japan, but also connects to hubs to boost connectivity to other locations in the United States and Asia.  Source: AFP, 30 June 2016

Google’s undersea cable connecting US and Japan is now live

The tech titan and its cohorts are done laying down 5,600 miles of cable in the ocean.

The $300 million trans-Pacific undersea cable backed by six companies, including Google, that connects Japan and the US is now online. It connects Oregon with the Chiba and Mie prefectures in Japan with 9,000 km (5,600 miles) of wires. However, those aren’t the only places that will benefit from its capacity to deliver speeds that can reach a whopping 60 terabits per second. The “FASTER cable,” as it’s called, has connections across the West Coast that cover Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland and Seattle, among other locations. It can also improve internet connections in Japan’s major cities and even in other Asian metropolises.

According to Google SVP Urs Hölzle, its 60Tbps total capacity is “more than any active subsea cable, and 10 million times faster than your cable modem.” Japanese company NEC Corporation began building FASTER back in 2014. Besides Google, the project was also backed by China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, KDDI and Singtel. The big G completely owns one part of FASTER, though, particularly the cables connecting Japan and Taiwan, which have a smaller, but still impressive, capacity of 20 Tbps.

Source: Urs Hölzle (Google+), NEC