I’ll give them the most spectacular heroics the world has ever seen! And when I’m old and I’ve had my fun, I’ll sell my inventions so that *everyone* can have powers. *Everyone* can be super! — The Incredibles
Google has joined a new oceanic fiber consortium called Southeast Asia Japan Cable (SJC).
The $400m project will create the highest capacity system ever built. SJC will provide up to 17 terabits/second – the equivalent of around 250m telephone lines.
The line will also be upgradeable and could eventually run as fast as 23Tbps – space for another 88m phone lines.
Google is partnering with a number of Asian telecommunications companies, including Japan’s KDDI and India’s Reliance Globalcom. On Wednesday officials signed the groundbreaking deal.
When it opens for business in 2012, the SJC will run 3,000 miles from Singapore to Japan – with branches reaching out to Hong Kong, the Philippines, Thailand and Guam. In total, it will consist of more than 5,000 miles of cable, sunk deep under the seabed.
Google also invested in the Unity transpacific cable last year. That 10,000 kilometer (km) Trans-Pacific cable will connect Tokyo to Los Angeles, with other West Coast points of presence. Unity announced the landing of its trans-Pacific cable in Japan last month. With construction on schedule, the new system, which links Japan with the U.S., is planned to be ready for service in the first quarter of 2010. The Unity cable system will add up to 4.8 Tbps of bandwidth across the Pacific with construction cost at approximately $300 million.
Verizon was a partner in the Trans-Pacific Express — the first next-generation undersea optical cable system that will directly link the United States and China. The Trans-Pacific Express offers capacity of up to 5.12Tbps, over 60 times the overall capacity of the existing cable directly linking the two countries. TPE was completed in late 2008.
The Alaska-Oregon Network submarine cable (AKORN), built by ACS, was activated this year, providing 2.5 Tbps of diverse connectivity between Alaska and national/global networks. AKORN’s four fiber pairs and advanced electronics more than triple Alaska’s existing interstate bandwidth capacity.
India’s Reliance Communications is looking to sell its undersea fiber optic network and U.S. network businesses, hoping to raise around $3 billion in cash. Reliance acquired the worlds largest private undersea cable system in 2003 for $207 million. It’s reportedly shopping the assets to Japan’s KDDI and U.S. operators AT&T and Verizon. Wikipedia has a list of international submarine communications cables.
Undersea fiber-optic cables are sheathed in a thick steel husk and buried in a yard-deep trench. But once the water depth exceeds 1,000 feet, they usually are left to run uncovered along the ocean floor.
Industry experts believe an NSA tap would have to occur in deep waters far out at sea, where the cable would be exposed and the risks of being seen would be lower.
The NSA is now building a massive $1.6 billion data center at Utah’s Camp Williams and held a tour of the site last month. An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 workers will be involved in the construction of the National Security Agency’s $1.5 billion data center.
The “industry day” was held Nov. 5 so businesses can learn more about how to participate. Google’s Eric Schmidt was in SLC at that time.
In other news, Canada’s NEPTUNE (NorthEast Pacific Time-Series Undersea Networked Experiments) cabled ocean observatory was officially turned on this week, delivering data from hundreds of scientific instruments and sensors installed on the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean.
Led by the University of Victoria, the undersea sensor network is designed to provide continuous, long-term monitoring of ocean processes and events via the Internet.
A Regional Scale Node, a component of the NSF’s Ocean Observatories Initiative will be located on the Juan de Fuca Plate off the Washington and Oregon coasts. It’s 200 miles from shore, just outside the territorial limits of the Exclusive Economic Zone.
In my favorite conspiracy theory, scientists couldn’t be trusted to keep secrets about fiber taps on NOAA platforms (pdf), so Sea Based X-Band radar would be drafted (with a suitable cover) and moored near Ocean Station Papa, south of Alaska.
However, the 400-year-old “freedom of the high seas” would be lost under a new United Nations plan in order to limit environmental damage. The military and conservationists are now talking about pooling their surveillance resources to enforce the changes. Next February a UN working group will discuss establishing Marine Protected Areas on the high seas. The Pentagon may help in preventing overfishing, piracy and terrorism.
Hydrothermal vents, in international waters, don’t require exploration rights, making patentable extremophile enzymes more cost/effective. Astrobiologists search for Alien Life on Earth and hope to contain extraterrestrial life. Eating iron in the Lost City.
According to the TeleGeography Global Bandwidth Report, 2007, Trans-Pacific bandwidth demand has grown at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 63.7 percent between 2002 and 2007. It is expected to continue to grow strongly from 2008 to 2013, with total demand for capacity doubling roughly every two years.
DailyWireless has more on Trans-Pacific Express Completed, Three Submarine Cables Damaged, Alaska Gets Terabit Fiber, The Platform, AT&T: More Transpacific Cable, Google + SingTel = Unity Submarine Fiber, Fifth Submarine Cable Damaged, Forth Submarine Cable Damaged, Mediterranean Submarine Cables Cut and Fiber Crosses the Pond.
