By Katie Davis F acebook and Microsoft are teaming up to and heading into the deep blue sea, well actually it is the Atlantic Ocean as they immerse them- selves into an ambitious project to lay a high-capacity internet cable across the Atlantic to Europe. In the plan announced by the partnering pair that they are taking on this, “MAREA”, cabling project to help meet growing customer demand for high speed, reliable connections for their plethora of cloud and online services. Microsoft and Facebook says this is “the highest-capacity subsea cable to ever cross the Atlantic” and will run 3,750 miles (6,030 km) between Virginia Beach, Virginia, in the United States to Bilbao, Spain, and then beyond to network hubs in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, and is slated to begin in August with completion expected in October, 2017.
Did we mention that is was fast, its estimated design capacity is a staggering 160 terabits per second and will be operated and managed by Tele- fonica’s Telexius.
The “MAREA” project will be the first subsea cable system to connect the United States to southern Europe, but it isn’t the first time a tech company has invested in subsea cable systems. Google announced back in 2014, that it have partnered with a group of Asia-based telecom com- panies to build a subsea cable connecting the U.S. with Japan.
8
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker