Google will help build a $300 million undersea cable system with five other companies, becoming the only online search operator with its own network…
The 10,000 kilometer network would link Chikura, in Japan, to Los Angeles, according to a statement from Singapore Telecom, one of the five companies. The project is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2010, the statement said…
The network could help Google, owner of the most-popular Internet search engine, increase its edge over Yahoo and Microsoft’s MSN.com by raising Web connection speeds out of Asia, where response times lag behind the average…
Now, why didn’t I think of that?
Or, more to the point – why didn’t Microsoft? Or AT&T?
Oh great, another underwater line to break. I think they are more worried about “outages” like the one on Youtube then anything else. Do you REALLY need to worry about a 5 second lag when your looking up your mail and weather?
As for why AT&T and others didn’t think of it… It’s $300 million bucks. With most companies the less they spend, they more they can show as revenue.
Hmmm… I wonder if the Mossad will cut their lines too.
In other news: Microsoft and Yahoo are negotiating a joint venture to build under sea cable snipping submarines.
$300 million for 10,000 kilometers? That actually seems rather affordable to wire a huge continent.
This damn Iraq war is costing $275 million A DAY and we got crap to show for it.
Hopefully these cables will be wrapped in kevlar.
#4 – How can you say we have nothing to show for this $275 million a day war? We have thousands of dead U.S. soldiers, $4 gas and economy in the shitter.
#1 – “Do you REALLY need to worry about a 5 second lag when your looking up your mail and weather?” – Yes. Any perceptible delay is ridiculously long. I want faster disk access on all servers, with terabit interlinks and at least gigabit to every home.
When you are the world’s largest server of video content (YouTube) and have plans to get bigger and better, you care about response time and bandwidth.
There are some countries that should have done this themselves already. I am thinking of Australia with its choked internet
# 6 Judge Jewdy said, #4 – How can you say we have nothing to show for this $275 million a day war? We have thousands of dead U.S. soldiers, $4 gas and economy in the shitter.
And maybe Americans would have even paid that incalculable price if the treat of terror had been reduced.
But the unspeakable shame is that, despite the trillions of dollars, thousands of lives and endless lost opportunities, we are worse off than before.
Bush’s bungling and the conservative cheerleading of it, will go down as one of the great tragedies in American history, I’m convinced of it.
Hit the nail on the head again GregA. If this undersea cable were anything but a giant synthetic penis i would agree about the Iraq war stuff. But since the undersea cables are just super colossal phony dicks i think the war with war was has had effect. Why would they be chopping off our prodigious underwater counterfeit wangs? and what are we going to do to re-retaliate?
It shouldn’t be Google’s job. What if Microsoft also wished to utilize that line?
The painting is of the Great Eastern ship designed by Brunel which laid the first trans-Atlantic cable.
For those of you interested in the laying of the transatlantic cable there is an excellent podcast from the Royal Society called:
“‘Lord Cable’: telegraphy, empire, and the making of Lord Kelvin PRS” which was made available 16th Nov last year.
So are they going to push for net neutrality when they own the fiber? Or are they going to insist on ads, make the network free but charge for their services which are given a priority?
Greg Allen said,
“And maybe Americans would have even paid that incalculable price if the ‘TREAT’ of terror had been reduced.”
I just have a bit of NSA ice cream once in a while when I want a treat. I’m sure this is a typo and not a Freudian slip. 😉
I love the pic of the great sailing ship. It looks like a sailing ship alongside a steam-driven smaller one. Of course steam eventually supplanted sailing ships. Does this observation apply here at all? Maybe Google should invest in a point-to-point RF link to Asia rather than a cable.
I think the cable will be a good thing….for them. I sure wish they were more concerned about wiring America first though. Here I am suffering with crap DSL, and I mean crap, while the Chinese are getting state of the art.
Sometimes I wonder if “Globalization” is a good thing for me. Maybe they should give free Internet access to the unemployed.
If the do-gooders really want to help the 3rd world starving – they should give free Internet access to everyone. The long-term benefits of that are incalculable.