Google speeds up internet in Asia

Asian netizens have begun to reap the benefits of Google's "Faster" project to speed up internet connections for undersea cables.

Previously, on June 29, the "Faster" project, including the trans-Pacific submarine cable that began construction in 2014 connecting the west coast of the United States with Japan, officially came into operation.

"Faster" was initiated in 2014, participating in investing in this fiber optic cable project, in addition to Google, there are other technology corporations such as Global Transit, China Telecom Global, Singtel, China Mobile International and KDDI. Japan's NEC Corporation is the designated partner to construct the cable line.

On September 6, the "Faster" submarine cable line expanded its connection from Japan to Taiwan, where Google's largest data server system in Asia is located. This new extension line has a maximum speed of 26 Tbps (Terabit/second), equivalent to 25,000 Gigabit/second, meaning that every second, the maximum data transmission is at 3,250,000 MegaBytes of data per second.

Construction of a trans-Pacific submarine cable to increase Internet access speed in Asia and the west coast of the US - Photo: NEC

Google gives an example of the speed and amount of data transmitted at 26 Tbps (Terabits/second). Specifically, every 15 seconds, the entire population of Taiwan can send a "selfie" of themselves to their friends in Japan. In total, that would be 138 billion "selfies" sent a day.

Asia is the world's fastest growing Internet market, with the number of people "going online" increasing rapidly in recent years. Accordingly, Google wants to invest in the necessary infrastructure to help the Internet operate well for everyone in the region. That is also the reason why Google built two data centers in this region, according to Google's representative for the Asia-Pacific region (APAC) Yan Tang shared on the blog.

In early 2016, three other "big guys" including Microsoft, Facebook and Telefonica's subsidiary Telxius also announced plans to build a submarine cable across the Atlantic, in parallel with Facebook's satellite wireless network broadcasting technology project covering Africa. Google services such as Gmail, YouTube... will be given priority from the "Faster" submarine cable, slightly more than other services.

According to TTO