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posted by martyb on Sunday September 24 2017, @01:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the sure-beats-dialup dept.

Microsoft, Facebook, and Telxius have completed the Marea subsea cable, which connects Virginia Beach, Virginia, U.S. to Bilbao, Spain:

The Marea cable's new "open" design allows it to evolve with technology, ensuring the highest performance for users now and well into the future, even as the global population of internet users grows. And make no mistake, the demand is growing. Just think of the many high-bandwidth applications and content you use today such as Skype and Facebook Live, and the volume of streaming videos, movies and music consumed daily. This ability to interoperate with many different kinds of networking equipment brings significant benefits including lower costs and easier equipment upgrades, leading to faster growth in bandwidth rates.

Completed in less than two years — nearly three times faster than is typical — Marea is a powerful example of the important role the private sector has to play in connecting the world. It also set a new standard for subsea cables because it is designed to meet today's demand and evolve with the progress of tomorrow, allowing companies offering digital services to be better equipped to handle cross-border internet traffic, which is expected to increase eightfold by 2025.

VentureBeat notes:

Elsewhere, Google and Facebook last year partnered on a new submarine cable project between Los Angeles and Hong Kong, while a new Google-backed transpacific internet cable from Japan to Oregon opened for business. Earlier this year, Google revealed it was also backing Indigo, a new undersea cable between Asia and Australia.

It was no surprise to learn that Amazon — a competitor in the cloud services space alongside Google and Microsoft — made its first major subsea cable investment last year when it plowed money into the transpacific Hawaiki cable, which should improve latency for Amazon Web Services (AWS) users in Australia and New Zealand.

[...] Though the cable should help bring greater speeds to connections between North America and Europe, it may also have a knock-on effect for Asia and Africa, which are connected via the same landmass.

Also at PC Magazine, eWeek, ZDNet, and Data Center Knowledge.


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  • (Score: 2) by Geezer on Sunday September 24 2017, @09:47AM

    by Geezer (511) on Sunday September 24 2017, @09:47AM (#572270)

    To be precise, Jimmy is based at Bangor on Hood Canal, which connects to all that other wavy, watery stuff. Subs pretty much go wherever there's enough H2O. Sneaky buggers.

    There's also the resource of T-ARC type craft like the USNS Zeus (conveniently based at Norfolk), which ostensibly serves to help maintain the SOSUS system but is quite capable of "repairing" oceanic fiber optic lines. Similar commercial craft can easily be contracted by No Such Agency. Always money for a few small "repairs".

    Sure the TLA's have lots of intercept vectors, but TFA relates directly to oceanic means.

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