Google fiber optic cable

So, a new fiber-optic cable named "Unity" has left Japan, bound for a rendezvous with another ship coming from Los Angeles. It was announced in February of last year, and is a joint effort by Google and a group of telecom companies. The companies involved are Bharti Airtel from India, Global Transit from Malaysia, Google, KDDI Corporation from Japan, Pacnet from Hong Kong, and SingTel from Singapore. Supposedly its full capacity is 7.68 Tbps (yes, that's terabits per second), though will be running at 4.8 Tbps when it's fully launched. The two ships will meet in the middle of the Pacific and fuse their cables together, and the new cable should be operational by early next year.

This will greatly increase the bandwidth available between the US and Asia, and is great news for those who frequently access sites across the pacific. (Such as many, if not most or all in the DC network community, ne?)

Of course, the first comment on the Slashdot article was entirely as expected. ;)

So, I'd ask if you were excited about this development, but I don't think there'd be many here who wouldn't be, so I'll ask another question instead.

Source: Google's Pacific fiber optic cable departs from Japan to connect to America (Examiner) via Transpacific Unity Fiber Optic Cable Leaves Japan (Slashdot)

(Pic from Safebooru.)