Backbone projects of telecommunications giants and maps of underwater communication channels

The amount of human-generated data is growing every year. Accordingly, the volume of traffic transmitted via Internet channels of the whole world is increasing. Most of the information is transmitted and received by telecommunication giants like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon. These companies are not enough current capacity of most communication channels, so they invest in the creation of new highways, often - undersea.



Since projects of this kind are quite complex and expensive, companies are merging. Actually, the reason for the partnership is often not even in money, but in the fact that a number of companies need a reliable channel for receiving and transmitting traffic to the same regions. The most recent example of such a partnership is a joint project of Facebook and Google. The companies initiated the creation of an underwater main line connecting Los Angeles and Hong Kong.



For Facebook, this is the second such project. Last May, a social network joined forces with Microsoft to create a highway connecting land stations in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA, and Bilbao, Spain. The system is called MAREA, the operator is Telefonica, a Spanish telecommunications company.

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As for the communication channel that connects Los Angeles and Hong Kong, this is one of the most important highways for the telecommunications sector, which provides the ability to transfer large amounts of data across the ocean. The channel capacity is 120 Tbps.



Telecommunications giants are laying undersea highways and together with companies from Asia. Examples of such projects include the New Cross Pacific Cable System (the main investors are Microsoft and a group of Asian companies) as well as the FASTER system, where Google was the initiator.



Last year, it began work as part of implementing its first backbone project and a division of Amazon, Amazon Web Services. As part of this project, called Hawaiki Submarine Cable, AWS decided to build a highway connecting points in the United States, Australia and New Zealand.



Telecommunications giants, realizing that technologies are developing very quickly, make their highways universal. The equipment here is unified, it can be replaced with a newer and more efficient. "This means the ability to upgrade equipment as



improving the production technology of fiber-optic elements and devices, without being tied to a specific type of ground station hardware, said a Facebook representative in 2016.



Now many highways about which telecommunication companies declared earlier, already work. More new communication channels are planned to be created. Below are the trunk maps, which were created thanks to the companies mentioned earlier and that are already working (source - Telegeography ):







Name: AEConnect (AEC)

Lead Partner: Microsoft

Commissioning: January 2016

Length: 5.536 km

Exit points:

• Killala, Ireland;
• Shirley, New York, USA.

Name: MAREA

Main Partner: Microsoft, Facebook

Commissioning: 1st quarter of 2018

Length: 6,600 km

Exit points:

• Bilbao, Spain;
• Virginia Beach, USA.

Title: GTT Express (formerly Hibernia Express)

Lead Partner: Microsoft

Commissioning: September 2015

Length: 4,600 km

Exit points:

• Bren, UK;
• Cork, Ireland;
• Halifax, Canada.

Name: Monet

Main partner: Google

Commissioning: 3rd quarter of 2017

Length: 10.556 km

Exit points:

• Boca Raton, Florida, USA;
• Fortaleza, Brazil;
• Santos, Brazil.

Name: Tannat

Main partner: Google

Commissioning: 4th quarter of 2017

Length: 2000 km

• Exit points:
• Maldonado, Uruguay;
• Santos, Brazil.

Name: Hawaiki Cable

Main Partner: Amazon Web Services

Commissioning: June 2018

Length: 10,200 km

Exit points:

• Capolei, United States;
• Mangawai, New Zealand;
• Pacific City, USA;
• Pago Pago, American Samoa;
• Sydney, Australia.

Name: Unity / EAC-Pacific

Main partner: Google

Commissioning: March 2010

Length: 9620 km

Exit points:

• Chikura, Japan;
• Redondo Beach, USA.

Name: FASTER

Main partner: Google

Commissioning: June 2016

Length: 11,629 km

Exit points:

• Bandon, Oregon, USA;
• Chikura, Japan;
• Tangshui, Taiwan.

Name: New Cross Pacific (NCP) Cable System

Lead Partner: Microsoft

Commissioning: June 2016

Length: 13,618 km

Exit points:

• Chunming, China;
• Lingang, China;
• Maruyama, Japan;
• Nanhui, China;
• Pacific City, USA;
• Busan, Korea;
• Tocheng, Taiwan.

Name: Asia Pacific Gateway (APG)

Main partner: Facebook

Commissioning: November 2016

Length: 10400 km

Exit points:

• Chunming, China;
• Da Nang, Vietnam;
• Kuantan, Malaysia;
• Maruyama, Japan;
• Nanhui, China;
• Busan, Korea;
• Tocheng, Taiwan;
• Shima, Japan;
• Songkla, Thailand;
• Tanah Merah, Singapore;
• Chonquangow New Town, Hong Kong.

Name: Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN)

Main partner: Google, Facebook

Commissioning: May 2018

Length: 12,800 km

Exit points:

• Manhattan Beach, USA;
• Chonquangow New Town, Hong Kong.

In general, large telecommunication companies successfully solve their own problems of transmitting and receiving increasing volumes of traffic in various regions. Gradually, the communication channels become more, and this opens up new business opportunities, which allows the telecommunications sector to grow.



And finally: in order to test our channels, we have prepared a special web test page on our website . Choose the desired location: USA (New York, California), the Netherlands or Russia. After that, you can apply for a free test of any service up to 30 days for free, but this is relevant for corporate customers only.