Google, Asian Companies Invest In Trans-Pacific Underwater Internet Cable System

Internet giant Google GOOG GOOGL has joined a group of Asian-based telecom companies to create a trans-Pacific cable link that will better service a constantly growing and more globalized internet.

According to the NEC Corporation NIPNF, the new system's supplier, the $300 million cable system will be called “FASTER” and will connect the U.S. West Coast to two “landing locations” in Japan.

In a press statement, NEC says FASTER will attend to “the intense traffic demands for broadband, mobile, applications, content and enterprise data exchange on the Trans-Pacific route.”

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Construction of FASTER –- which will reportedly use the latest high-quality, six-fiber-pair cable and optical transmission technologies -– is scheduled to begin immediately, with the system expected to be ready for service some time during the second quarter of 2016.

The Fastest Path

“At Google we want our products to be fast and reliable, and that requires a great network infrastructure, whether it's for the more than a billion Android users or developers building products on Google Cloud Platform,” Urs Hölzle, senior vice president of technical infrastructure at Google, noted Monday on his Google+ page.

“And sometimes the fastest path requires going through an ocean,” he added. “That’s why we’re investing in FASTER, a new undersea cable that will connect major West Coast cities in the US to two coastal locations in Japan with a design capacity of 60 Tbps (that's about ten million times faster than your cable modem).”

Here's some information about the six Asia-based companies teaming with Google on the FASTER trans-Pacific link:

NEC Corporation

As mentioned, Tokyo-based NEC Corporation is building the FASTER system. The company has been around for 115 years, and has grown into a leading IT and network techology firm with business activities in more than 140 countries and territories. NEC recently sold thousands of mobile technology patents to China-based Lenovo.

China Mobile International

China Mobile International (CMI) is an international and wholly-owned subsidiary of China Mobile Limited CHL, one of China's three state-owned telecom companies. An investment holding company, China Mobile Limited and its subsidiaries provide mobile telecom services in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and other administrative regions in mainland China as well as Hong Kong.

China Telecom Global

CTG is the Hong Kong-based international subsidiary of another state-owned telecommunications company, China Telecom CHA. Formed in 2012, CTG currrently has a global network that, according to the company's web site, offers “world-class integrated communication services to multinational businesses, telecommunication service providers and overseas Chinese consumers around the world.”

KDDI

KDDIY

Japan's second-largest mobile operator, KDDI has more than 40 million subscribers. Formed in 2000 by the merger of three companies, KDDI has more than 100 offices in 28 countries and reportedly is the number-three Asian telecommunications carrier in terms of sales.

SingTel

Headquartered in Singapore, SingTel is a leading communications group across Asia. The firm has regional mobile operations in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Bangladesh, and a presence in Africa, with more than 500 million mobile customers across 25 countries. SingTel also has investments in India and Sri Lanka and, by capitalization, is the largest listed company on the Singapore Exchange.

Global Transit

A subsidiary of Malaysia-based Time dotCom Berhad group, Global Transit provides its customers with a global series of submarine cable links. It also owns stakes in other sub-sea cable systems, including Unity; another Google-backed trans-Pacific fiber optic cable system, and the Asia Pacific Gateway, a 10,000 kilometer (6,200 mile) international fiber optic cable system.