Remember the recent disaster that left parts of the Middle East and India without Internet for days? That incident happened because of damage done to an undersea cable internet system. That is the very same type of system that Google has decided to invest in.

The cable Google is buying into will serve its Asian market, and will address capacity problems the online giant has been having in getting data to its large Asian customer base. Undersea cable systems are not cheap, however; and Google will be partnering with five other companies to make the project happen: Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI Corporation, Pacnet, and SingTel.

The finished undersea cable system will measure 10,000 kilometers (or roughly 6000 miles). The cost of the project is expected to run at least $300 million USD, but it’s a wise investment for Google. Currently, they pay premium prices to use bandwidth on other companies’ cable systems. This would net a large chunk of bandwidth at cost – a huge savings in the long run as more and more content runs through their pipeline.

The project could be completed as early as 2010, operating under the code name Unity. At the moment, Google and ComCast are the only American companies investing in this submarine dark fiber technology. that should give them both a substantial investment in future market share and a lead in the bandwidth usage game. Google is, so far, he first and only company that isn’t a telecommunications company to get in on the ground floor of a cable build.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 11:30 am under Google, Internet.

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