Microsoft and Facebook have just announced the completion of an undersea cable, in collaboration with telecom infrastructure company Telxius, the highest capacity cable of its kind to ever cross the Atlantic Ocean.
Images courtesy: Microsoft
The cable, called Marea (Spanish for ¡®tide¡¯) stretches across 6,400 km between Virginia Beach and Bilbao in Spain, approximately 17,000 ft below the surface of the Atlantic. It¡¯s capable of transmitting a blistering 160 terabits of data per second, equivalent to streaming 71 million HD videos simultaneously.
Marea is approximately 16 million times faster than the average home internet connection, Microsoft said in a blog post, and will be operational by early 2018. Marea also stretches further south than other transatlantic cables, automatically safeguarding it against natural disasters like hurricanes that can disrupt services.
¡°Marea comes at a critical time,¡± Microsoft president Brad Smith says. ¡°Submarine cables in the Atlantic already carry 55 percent more data than trans-Pacific routes and 40 percent more data than between the US and Latin America. There is no question that the demand for data flows across the Atlantic will continue to increase.¡±?
The cable was completed three times faster than expected, finishing up in just under two years. It also has an ¡°open design¡± meaning it can be easily upgraded and expanded as the number of Internet users around the world increases. In the meantime, both Microsoft and Facebook will benefit from the technology.
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