“The 10,000 km (6,200 mile) long Unity fiber optic cable, funded by Google and five East Asian communication companies, left Japanese shores on November 1st to be laid along the northern Pacific Ocean floor. The Japanese end of the cable is expected to be fused to the American end sometime around November 11th. The cable, which was announced in February of 2008 at a cost of around $300 million USD, has the theoretical capacity of 7.68 Tbps, but will be set at a capacity of about 4.8 Tbps (supposedly equivalent to about 75 million simultaneous phone calls) during its initial use. When Unity begins full operation sometime early next year, it is projected to increase internet traffic capacity between the two regions by over 20%, a wonderful boost to transpacific relations!”
Phi Beta Iota: We've never understood the American obsession with satellites, absent the corrupt fascination with screwing the taxpayer while leaving all US communications open to being fried by the Chinese. Latency matters. From where we sit, for the cost of one Lockheed rocket exploding on the launch pad you can get a serious fiber line down. That makes a lot more sense to us.
