Google Will Invest in Trans-Pacific Cable
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | February 27, 2008 | Share This
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Google said this week that it will join five other companies in a consortium building a $300 million, trans-Pacific undersea cable to connect the U.S. and Japan. Rumors of the cable named Unity first surfaced in September of last year. Google is the only non-telecom and U.S. company in the venture, but the search giant says it doesn’t have telecom ambitions:
If you’re wondering whether we’re going into the undersea cable business, the answer is no. We’re not competing with telecom providers, but the volume of data we need to move around the world has grown to the point where in some cases we’ve exceeded the ability traditional players can offer. Our partnership with these companies is just another step in ensuring that we’re delivering the best possible experience to people around the world.
Though Google doesn’t have telecom ambitions, this is still perhaps a challenge to monopolistic U.S. broadband companies. The Unity cable will likely help Google address or even circumvent attempts by telecoms who try to control the flow of internet traffic. This is important especially to the future of bandwidth-heavy online activity, particularly online video, in which Google clearly has a big stake (namely, YouTube).
Topics: Google, Technology |