Google Planning New Undersea Cable Across Pacific?

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.'"

Comments

evesdropping requirements

[Anonymous Coward]

So will the NSA tap it at the google datacenter with their permission ala AT&T or will the Navy have to tap it will one of those fancy subs we keep hearing about that lifts the cable off the seabed and can splice without interruption?

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

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no need to splice the fiber, just tap one of the many repeaters.

Re:evesdropping requirements

[CastrTroy]

Why not just take responsibility for your own data and encrypt it yourself. Would you really trust that they were really encrypting it, and not leaving any back doors for the government, or the mafia? The solution is simple. If you're worried about them tapping the cable, then just encrypt your data end-to-end.

Re:evesdropping requirements

[smallfries]

Splicing is not actually necessary. No cable has perfect internal reflection and so some light escapes naturally. A tap can sample this light without disrupting the cable, or being detectable. There was also a method a few years ago that involved encasing the cable in something that reduces the refractive index of the glass at the boundary and so allows the signal to be read - but this can be detected by the network operator. Newer methods are undetectable.

What about the cost of US internet?

[ejito]

Why are we trying to reduce the cost of Asian providers when the US' is still overpriced, unreliable, and underserved?

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?

[KrancHammer]

It's still a matter of government intervention, not corporate meddling.

Geez. You managed to distill leftist philosophy into one sentence. That's impressive. South Korea and Japan's impressive availability is a matter of advantageous population distribution and relatively low cost of infrastructure because of that distribution. This situation will never, ever happen in the U.S., even if politicians try to wave magic Government-Issued wands.

Re:What about the cost of US internet?

[haulbag]

Although it is really entertaining to read all of these conspiracy theories, they really have no basis in fact or common telecom practice. I have been in the telecom business for 15 years, and this is just one of many such deals that happen every few years. For example, check out Global Crossing's international crossings on their network map.

This deal has nothing to do with making Internet access cheaper for anyone. What it is about is the ability to capture significant revenue by owning the transmission pipe. It is often the case that a consortium of telecom companies go in together on the cost of a new telecom crossing. Based on how much they pay, they purchase a certain number of fiber pairs.

The whole idea is that by owning the physical facilities, you can put optics on the end that enable you to have almost unlimited bandwidth. You can open as many wavelengths (a.k.a windows) as you have the technology for, and sell those wavelengths, or portions of them, to other carriers for a much higher price than your base cost. Most of these wavelengths are sold based on an IRU agreement (Irrefutable Right of Use) to other carriers for a specific number of years.

In Google's case, I would say that their motivation would be to enable cost savings. If you own the fiber pairs, you don't have to pay way more to buy a wavelength IRU or a private line. This does not really appreciably increase the amount of bandwidth available to the world, because there is really an over-abundance of capacity as it is.

Another strategic reason to invest in the fiber would be to bypass the PTT (Post Telegraph and Telephone) monopoly in that country. That enables you to connect directly to a competitive carrier in the foreign country and reduce your cost per minute for terminating phone calls to the PSTN in that country. Without bypassing the PTT, you are stuck with the ITU negotiated settlement rates, which are much higher in cost. So Google could use some of the windows on this fiber to send voice traffic cheaper. If you are expecting billions of minutes, this makes sense as a cost savings.

This really has nothing to do with direct bandwidth available to Asian customers, but it could help reduce latency for ISPs in Asian countries if they interconnect with Google directly to pass packets destined to Google. That would cut out several router hops and would therefore speed transmission.

If Google wants to, they could also provide IP transport to ISPs who want to connect to US-based Net sites. If they really want to act like a carrier, that's a no-brainer. Most likely there will be a significant portion of the traffic that is headed in one way or the other (probably toward the US), so Google could at least sell the extra capacity going the other direction.

Sounds good

[The Famous Brett Wat]

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...

Re:Do no evil ....

[ChronosWS]

I assure you the Chinese government doesn't suddenly have less authority because Google has fiber in the Pacific.

Nice

[imsabbel]

Now they wont even have to run their spiders anymore, nor use gmail to create targeted ads.
They will just snoop everybodies traffic....

One way to achieve Net Neutrality...

[weav]

I guess that's one way to achieve net neutrality. Now they just need to run their own backbone to every major peering point and ISP in the rest of the world...

Re:Africa

[LineGrunt]

Why not Africa?

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.

Google operates at pleasure of Chinese government

[AHumbleOpinion]

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.

The Google office, all the data it collected on Chinese individuals, and one end of that cable all exist in Chinese territory. Google operates at the pleasure of the Chinese government. The day Google attempts to move against that government is the day all Google's property and data becomes property of the government and Google's employees are arrested.