Google and the five telecoms companies said in joint statement that the 10,000 km (6,200 mile) undersea fiber optic cable, connecting the United States to Japan, will cost $300 million.
Google's partners in the consortium, dubbed Unity, comprises Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI Corp, Pacnet, and Singapore Telecommunications.
The cable will provide much-needed capacity to sustain unprecedented growth in data and Internet traffic between Asia and the United States.
The consortium said it has picked NEC Corporation and Tyco Telecommunications to construct and install the system, which is expected to be ready for service in the first quarter of 2010.
The cost per kilometer of this cable is approximately US$30,000.
What is also interesting to me is that it continues to mark Google's engagement in carriage. Do you view this as a long term contract to assure supply (like one might do in a futures market)? This, by the way, is what Google implied in this statement. Or, do you view this as a part of a continuing effort at Google to build an integrated information utility?
