Google throws its weight behind $300m 'Faster' Trans

INTERNET GIANT Google thrown its weight behind a $300m undersea cable that will link Japan and the west coast of US in order to improve global internet connectivity.

Google is one of six firms to get onboard to fund the project, along with China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, Google, KDDI and Singte, with NEC Corporation also joining as system supplier.

The project will see a Trans-Pacific cable dubbed 'Faster' running from two locations in Japan - Chikura and Shima - across the Pacific ocean to the US, where connections will run into hubs in Los Angeles and San Francisco in California, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. Faster's goal is to address the 'intense' traffic demand for broadband, mobile and enterprise data exchange on the Trans-Pacific route, and will offer a capacity of 60Tbps over six fibre-pair cables in order to do so.

Chairman of the Faster executive committee Woohyong Choi said that the cable will benefit internet users across the globe.

'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.

'The agreement announced today will benefit all users of the global internet.'

Naoki Yoshida, general manager of NEC's Submarine Network Division, added, 'NEC Corporation is proud to be the system supplier for the Faster cable system, a state-of-the-art long haul system that will provide additional connectivity and capacity between regions of the world that increasingly require more bandwidth.

'Backed by more than 30 years of experience in constructing over 200,000 kilometers of cables, NEC is one of the world's top vendors of submarine cable systems.'

Construction of Faster will begin immediately and the system is expected to be ready for service during the second quarter of 2016.

News of Google's Trans-Pacific undersea cable participation comes just weeks after it was revealed that the firm has no plans to bring its Fiber internet service to the UK, a revelation that likely has been welcomed by UK ISPs. µ