Consortium with Google commissions 60Tbit/s submarine cable from US to Japan

A consortium of six companies, including Google, has commissioned a new submarine cable. The 9000km cable connects Oregon in the US to Chiba and Mie administrative districts in Japan.

The cable was laid by NEC on behalf of the consortium called Faster. In addition to Google, China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, KDDI and SingTel also invested in the $300 million project.

Now that the work has been completed, the submarine cable has been put into operation immediately. The cable has six fiber pairs and the total capacity is 60Tbit/s, or 7.5 terabytes per second. The construction went completely according to plan, in 2014 the companies announced that the aim was to start using the cable in mid-2016.

The submarine cable connects coastal hubs in the US and Japan. In America, that is Oregon, from which cities such as San Francisco, Las Vegas and Seattle must be served. The cable will arrive at two points on Japan’s southern coast, near cities such as Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. Several submarine cables are already located on the same route.

Microsoft and Facebook announced at the end of May that the two internet companies will jointly lay a 160Tbit/s cable between Europe and the US. The construction of that 6600 km long fiber optic cable will start in August and should be ready in October 2017.

The route of the new 60Tbit/s cable from the Faster consortium