Apparently surfing the web actually happens through the ocean. Mind blown.
Largest ocean in the world? A minor setback for Google’s newest effort to deliver faster internet speeds to customers in Japan.
On Thursday, Google executives announced the completion of a $300 million underwater cable project called FASTER. Aptly named, the cable spans the entirety of the Pacific Ocean – from the coast of Oregon to Japan – and delivers speeds of 60 terabits per second (10 million times faster than a cable modem).
Urs Hölzle, senior vice president of technical infrastructure at Google, shared the following message via his Google+ account: “Internet users and our customers in Japan today should notice things seem to be moving a bit…FASTER. Today, our FASTER subsea cable between Japan and the U.S. officially entered into service.” The cable sends signals over 9,000 kilometers across the ocean floor, says Hölzle.
The $300 million cable, called FASTER, stretches over 9,000km. But apparently none of that money went toward developing a non-lame acronym.
What a time to be alive. If, like me, you weren’t aware, there are apparently hundreds of these transcontinental submarine cables already in existence across the world (see for yourself). FASTER is the newest, and pushing the technology to new heights (depths?) in terms of speed. For comparison sake, UNITY, a Google-supported transpacific cable project that debuted in 2010, has a 7.68 terabits per second capacity. Compared to FASTER, that might feel like your internet were as slow as if it were, well, underwater.
Isn’t technology crazy? These submarine cables are the backbone of the internet, says Hölzle. Who knew?
