Google joins undersea cable project

Demand for intercontinental bandwidth is attracting interest from more than just telecoms companies, as Google has become the latest organisation to invest in undersea data cables.

The web search and advertising company has partnered with a consortium of five telcos to construct the $300 million (£150 million) link between the US and Japan, a major bottleneck for internet traffic. The cable will stretch across 10,000 km (6,200 miles) of sea bed.

Google's partners in the consortium, dubbed Unity, comprises Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI, Pacnet, and Singapore Telecommunications.

The cable will provide much-needed capacity to sustain unprecedented growth in data and internet traffic between Asia and the US.

"The Unity cable system allows the members of the consortium to provide the increased capacity needed as more applications and services migrate online," said Jayne Stowell, a spokeswoman for the consortium.

The consortium said it has picked NEC and Tyco to construct and install the system, which is expected to be ready for service in the first quarter of 2010.

Undersea data cables, particularly in Asia, have been a cause for concern in 2008 after several key data links near Egypt were damaged, causing disruption to internet traffic across the whole region and taking several weeks to repair.

(Additional reporting by Chris Green, IT PRO)

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