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Google Planning New Undersea Cable Across Pacific?
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Sep 22, 2007 09:11 AM
from the stranger-things-have-been-sponsored dept.
from the stranger-things-have-been-sponsored dept.
tregetour writes "Google is planning a multi-terabit undersea communications cable across the Pacific Ocean for launch in 2009, Communications Day reports: 'Google would not strictly confirm or deny the existence of the Unity plan today, with spokesman Barry Schnitt telling our North American correspondent Patrick Neighly that "Additional infrastructure for the Internet is good for users and there are a number of proposals to add a Pacific submarine cable. We're not commenting on any of these plans." However, Communications Day understands that Unity would see Google join with other carriers to build a new multi-terabit cable. Google would get access to a fibre pair at build cost handing it a tremendous cost advantage over rivals such as MSN and Yahoo, and also potentially enabling it to peer with Asia ISPs behind their international gateways — considerably improving the affordability of Internet services across Asia Pacific.'"
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Google Planning New Undersea Cable Across Pacific?
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evesdropping requirements (Score:4, Insightful)
Because you know there's no way "homeland security" is letting that happen without monitoring.
You know with these kinds of resources, if Google ever did turn evil, we'd never figure it out until it was far too late...
Re:evesdropping requirements (Score:5, Informative)
Re:evesdropping requirements (Score:5, Informative)
Re:evesdropping requirements (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.slashdot.org/)
Re:evesdropping requirements (Score:4, Informative)
NZ, Australia, Japan and now something extra in Hawaii. Asia is now so tapped.
Google is of no interest, the NSA can tap at any point they want.
http://cryptome.org/google/kunia-us.htm [cryptome.org]
Google an NSA front ... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Do no evil .... (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://o2kewl.net/)
This may have been a brilliant move on Googles' part. Fully cooperate with the Chinese governments' "Great Firewall" until they could put themselves in a position to undermine that authority.
Re:Do no evil .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Great? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it is great if it is true. I like the redundancy plan. But, since they don't specify the route, I am very skeptical. On the other hand, who am I to talk. I have never put a job opening on Monster looking for a "submarine cable negotiator." That is frickin' hilarious.
Me? I would go up through Alaska, through Russia via the Bering Sea. Cap'n Sig would do most of the work for me on the Northwestern. I would avoid doing a Portland-to-Tokyo route because of the ring-o-fire thingy.
I fell in to a burning ring of fire, I went down,down,down and the flames went higher. And my mod went lower.
Re:Great? (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.unity08.com/)
It's amusing that you would mention that, because the first transatlantic telegraph cable (well... the first project - there were a few abortive attempts as well as some attempts that stopped working soon after completion) was in direct competition with a "do it the long way" overland route via Russia that was being built by Western Union. The first long-lasting undersea cable eventually finished the race first in 1866, and the Western Union attempt was abandoned the next year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Union_Telegraph_Expedition [wikipedia.org]
What about the cost of US internet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Last time I checked, Japan and SK had amazing speeds (10-100mbit) for very affordable prices. It's still a matter of government intervention, not corporate meddling.
Re:What about the cost of US internet? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes and no.
The Feds, over the past decade, did wave such a magic card at the Telcos and the billions of dollars that were inside that card that were supposed to be used for such a buildout just vanished. Gone. Never to be seen again. "Information superhighway" my ass.
So the situation could obtain in the U.S. but only if we remove a major stumbling block: the major ISP themselves. Believe me, the investment capital would be available if the people willing to put up the money knew that they would receive a return on that investment. Interestingly, Google is investing heavily in infrastructure, but they're not giving it to the incumbents. They know better than anyone that it would be a waste of money.
Sounds good (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.nutters.org/user/famous | Last Journal: Saturday March 22 2003, @12:57PM)
As I understand it, Australia (and probably everyone else, for that matter) has been getting reamed by the USA as regards Internet peering arrangements. Bandwidth costs have always been higher here, and it's not all to do with a lack of local competition, although that used to be a credible story back when Telstra was charging twenty cents a megabyte for permanent dial-up connectivity. These days the economic pressure is mostly conspicuous for the fact that local hosting services are so expensive. If Google busts up that cosy little oligopoly, I'll love them to bits for it. To gigabits, even. (Sorry. Preemptive pun. Someone had to do it.)
Is this a part of Google's answer to the whole carrier sabre-rattling about non-neutrality and wanting a slice of Google's profits? There's no better way to ensure fair treatment than to provide your own infrastructure. Is this Google's way of saying to the carriers, "get over it, guys -- bandwidth is a fricken commodity now, and we're going to compete with you to make it so, so kiss your old monopoly profits goodbye." There's a high barrier to entry in this market, and you'd be mad to buy your way in only to compete all the profits out of it -- unless you happen to be a major consumer of bandwidth yourself, like Google.
Must... not... get... hopes... up...
The googlopoly (Score:1)
(http://robotterror.com/slashdot | Last Journal: Thursday November 04 2004, @05:48PM)
Africa (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Africa (Score:4, Insightful)
Because businesses function on making money, not just fulfilling "needs."
Undersea cables are hideously expensive and the company putting one in _needs_ to have a reasonable chance of recouping those costs.
While Africa may "need" internet, the fact that companies aren't already in a race to provide Africa with internet is a de-facto signal that multiple companies don't think they have a business case to provide it.
I need a "Ferrari" but the business community isn't in a hurry to provide ME with one either.
Author mispoke (Score:1)
(http://worsethanfailure.com/)
You mean Firewalls, don't you?
Nice (Score:3, Insightful)
They will just snoop everybodies traffic....
One way to achieve Net Neutrality... (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://www.trumalia.com/)
They are buying one fiber pair (Score:5, Informative)
As for "considerably improving the affordability of Internet services across Asia Pacific,'" I don't follow that at all. Google doesn't sell transit. The new cable might do that, but not because of Google - because real ISPs will get other fiber pairs and use them to sell transit.
Next, we'll get articles about how Google's corporate jets will revolutionize air transport in North America ! (At least, for Google execs.)
Google is the NWO (Score:1, Interesting)
(http://www.corrupt.org/ | Last Journal: Monday November 05, @12:06AM)
I almost want Microsoft to win, because at least they've got part of the fascist aesthetic down. This Nanny Corporate State NWO bullshit is just depressingly silly.
Lower the cost? (Score:1)
New Google Hire (Score:2, Funny)
FTFA: WTF is a Capacity Bubble? (Score:2)
(http://www.nearlydeaf.com/ | Last Journal: Friday June 16 2006, @12:24AM)
...What?
Wikipedia article - Submarine Communications Cable (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~fcueto)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable [wikipedia.org]
I particularly found very interesting the map with all the undersea cables in the world. Pretty cool.
Why can't the USA get decent Internet (Score:1)
(http://xkcd.com/301/)
Why am I stuck with 1.5m/384k DSL?
When will FiOS get to Oklahoma!!!
ZOMG! They're going to do it! (Score:3, Funny)
Preempting? (Score:2)
(http://baheyeldin.com/)
See, if the net does not become neutral (i.e. tiered access), they would be seriously affected and have to pay the ISPs so their sites are in the top tier (think servers where Adsense is served from).
If they now own the pipes, they can avoid this whole debate altogether.
Then again, the net neutrality issue is about the last mile (provider to end user), so that may not be it
Google's Australian datacenter? (Score:1)
(http://www.dettifoss.org/)
A friend and I made the assumption that given the time of day (Approx. lunchtime, EDT), it was the middle of the night in Oz, so maybe Google was doing some kind of global load balancing, using places where resources were cheapest on a daily basis (i.e. at night) to do the bulk of processing. By this logic, the traceroute would move around the globe with the night, so maybe Australia, India, Europe, the US, back to Australia over 24 hours. However, when I tried the trace again around 1800 EDT, the destination was still Australia, as it was the next morning.
Was the software wrong? Is Google faking it to make it look as if it's in Oz? Or do they really have huge datacenter there?
Rumors (Score:1)
(http://ruminate8.blogspot.com/)
Re:why is this better than satellite upload/downlo (Score:1, Informative)
Video surveillance and satellite would work fine together: a 1 second delay usually isn't a concern in such applications. Same thing with batch jobs and large file transfers.
But for short message/interactive applications (games, shells, telephone communications), an undersea cable is, right now, the best communications path. Very high bandwidth and shortest-path. The big downside of a cable is that it is more vulnerable to damage by nature or by vandalism.
Satellites are awesome for some applications, but they have significant trade-offs. Namely, expensive, unrepairable equipment, jamming potential, and the highest conversational delays.
Re:Submarine cables? (Score:1)
Well, there's nothing like wired network access for security... ;D
Re:Submarine cables? (Score:2, Funny)
Submarine means "under water", you subliterate.
Re:Submarine cables? (Score:1)
(http://www.nullprogram.com/)
Re:why is this better than satellite upload/downlo (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.open-rsc.org/)
fibre is currency in this century.
Re:why is this better than satellite upload/downlo (Score:1)
(http://www.freerollarmy.com/)
Re:why is this better than satellite upload/downlo (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Tuesday August 22 2006, @10:59PM)