On Thursday, Microsoft and Facebook announced that they will work together to build a high-speed Internet cable across the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Both the companies aim in constructing a new sub-sea MAREA cable by the end of the end of next year, that is December 2017. The main reason behind constructing this cable was to meet the ever growing demands of the tech companies customers, for very quick reliable data connections.
In a release, Christian Belady who is the Microsoft data center strategy general manager said that, as the world is increasingly moving toward a future based on cloud computing, Microsoft continues to invest in our cloud infrastructure to meet current and future growing global demand for our more than 200 cloud services. The new sub-sea MAREA cablewill be the first highest-capacity sub-sea cable, to ever cross the Atlantic. According to the companies this cable is expected to provide a speed of 160 terabytes per second of data.
Microsoft and Facebook said that the length of the cable was 6,600 kilometer, and that it was the first cable system to connect the United States and southern Europe countries right from Northern Virginia to Bilbao and Spain. Then again from Spain, the data network will link to hubs in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and other parts of Europe. They also said that on this cable project they are working with global communications company Telxius, owned by Telefonica. The Vice President of network engineering Najam Ahmad, said we are always evaluating new technologies and systems in order to provide the best connectivity possible. We want to do more of these projects in this manner – allowing us to move fast with more collaboration.
