Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Google's Pacific Fiber Optic Cable

Some exciting news for the tech geek in us all.....

The laying of a new high-bandwidth fiber-optic cable connecting North America and Asia via the northern Pacific Ocean began on November 1st from Japan. The cable line, called “Unity”, is a project of six major communication companies, including Google and Japan’s KDDI.


In light of the ever increasing traffic between the two regions of the world, six companies aim to increase the overall transpacific cable capacity by at least 20% when it is set to launch approximately in the spring of 2010.

The cable, when finished, will stretch approximately 10,000 km (6,200 miles) from data centers in the Los Angeles area to KDDI’s data center in Chikura, just outside of Tokyo. From Japan, information can then be distributed to other countries in East Asia.

News sites noted that the planned maximum capacity of Unity was 7.68 Tbps; however, that number has since fallen to 4.8 Tbps for its initial use, according to a report from Japan’s ITpro. (For the curious, according to one reporter, John Bourdreau, 4.8 Tbps would supposedly be the equivalent of approximately 75 million simultaneous voice calls!)

All the best.....Mark

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