The world’s highest-capacity undersea Internet cable, a 9,000-kilmetre link between the US and Japan backed by Google has been activated. Almost all international Internet traffic runs via undersea cables, but in the Internet’s earlier days much of the traffic was via satellites. Shark attacks forced Google to reinforce parts of its cable infrastructure with a special Kevlar coating in 2014. The fibre cable, which can transport data at 60 terabits per second (60 million Mbps) is expected to be a significant boost to trans-pacific Internet speeds. The $390 million “Faster” cable system will connect to hubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle, and two points in Japan.

Source: National Post June 30, 2016 15:33 UTC