Google switches new undersea cable online in Asia

Google has started bringing online a new high-speed fibre optic undersea cable to speed up its services in Asia.

A subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., Google is part of the six-member FASTER Consortium that began operating the world's fastest undersea cable to date in June this year between the US and Japan, Xinhua news agency reported.

Yan Tang, Google Network Resource's Asia-Pacific regional head, posted a blog saying the company based in Mountain View, California, further extended the Trans-Pacific link from Japan to China's Taiwan province, where Google has its largest data centre in Asia.

At speeds of up to 26 terabits per second, "this new cable should help Google products and services load more quickly across the region", Tang noted, adding that the experience should also be more reliable, as the cable was built outside of tsunami zones to help prevent network outages related to natural disasters.

In addition to Google, China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit of Malaysia, KDDI of Japan and SingTel of Singapore are members of the FASTER Consortium.

Built with about $300 million and 100Gb/s x 100 wavelengths optical transmission technologies, the 6-fiber-pair cable system lands at Bandon, Oregon, in the US and Chikura and Shima in Japan.

It reaches major data communications hubs on the US West Coast covering the Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle areas and connects many cable systems in Asian countries and regions neighbouring Japan.

--IANS

ksk/dg