Google consortium “FASTER” 9000km, 60Tbps Pacific submarine cable to Japan has landed end June 2015.
The 9,000-kilometer FASTER cable when operational in 2016 will have a peak capacity of 60 terabits per second (100Gb/s x 100 wavelengths x 6 fibre-pairs) joining Japan on two landing locations (Chikura and Shima) with Oregon on the West Coast of the U.S.
Cost: USD $300 million. Contract awarded to NEC as equipment supplier.
On the picture above in the back is the cable ship KDDI Pacific Link
▻http://www.k-kcs.co.jp/english/images/KPL%20Brochuer.pdf
▻http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/details/ships/shipid:664203/mmsi:431575000/imo:9017824/vessel:KDDI_PACIFIC_LINK
According to the very good website on the submarine cables of the internet Builtvisible, by 2017 there will be about 238 fibre optic undersea cables.
▻https://builtvisible.com/messages-in-the-deep
▻http://www.computerworld.com/article/2939316/networking-hardware/googles-60tbps-pacific-cable-welcomed-in-japan.html
Roughly 99% of all transoceanic Internet data goes through submarine cables, which are designed to last decades. Several hundred systems link various parts of the world, and the FASTER cable is scheduled to be ready for service in the second quarter of 2016.
A video showing the NEC fibre optic missile-shaped repeaters, which can weigh between 200 and 700 kg. They are placed 40 to 100 km apart from each other:
▻http://www.computerworld.com/video/46469/these-giant-missile-shaped-devices-carry-the-internet-across-oceans.h
▻http://www.nec.com/en/press/201408/global_20140811_01.html
The six-company consortium is comprised of China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, Google, KDDI and SingTel. The name FASTER was adopted to represent the cable system’s purpose of rapidly serving surging traffic demands.
Pictures of the landing site can be found here:
▻http://gigazine.net/news/20150615-kddi-faster
The landing site:
The end of the cable (note, this is not the cable itself you see here, just the pulling structure):
The cable puller:
Entering the building: