Unity is a Trans-Pacific
submarine communications cable between
Japan and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
that was completed in April 2010.
Unity comprises a 10,000 km linear cable system with a "multi-
terabit
The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented a ...
" capacity of up to 7.68 Tbit/s.
Construction of the cable was funded by a consortium formed in February 2008 comprising
Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as (d/b/a) Airtel, is an Indian multinational telecommunications services company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as well as the Channel Islands. Currently, ...
, Global Transit,
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
,
KDDI Corporation,
Pacnet
Pacnet was a global telecommunications service provider between 2008 and 2015. It was formed from the operational merger of Asia Netcom and Pacific Internet on 8 January 2008. It was owned by a private investor group comprising Ashmore Investm ...
and
SingTel.
[Grahame Lynch]
Google plans new undersea "Unity" cable across Pacific
." '' CommsDay.com.'' September 21, 2007. Retrieved on September 21, 2007. Unity's installation cost around US$300 million, and its completion increased Trans-Pacific cable capacity by around 20 per cent.
[
]
History
In February 2008 a consortium comprising Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, Google, KDDI Corporation, Pacnet and SingTel announced that they had executed agreements to build a high-bandwidth subsea fiber optic cable linking the United States and Japan, with an estimated construction cost of US$300 million.[
A signing ceremony was held in Tokyo on February 23, 2008 at which the Unity consortium contracted NEC Corporation and ]Tyco Telecommunications Tyco may refer to:
* Tyco International, a diversified industrial conglomerate
** TE Connectivity, formerly Tyco Electronics, a former segment of Tyco International
** Tyco Solarlok, a type of electrical connector widely known as "the Tyco connecto ...
to construct and install the system. NEC and Tyco began work on the project in June 2008. The cable reached Japan in November 2009. Testing of the cable was completed, and it became ready for service, in April 2010.
Specifications
Unity is a 10,000 kilometer Trans-Pacific cable between Chikura, located off the coast near Tokyo, and Los Angeles and other network points of presence on the West Coast of the United States. At Chikura, Unity is connected to other cable systems.
The new five fiber pair cable system has five fiber pairs, with each fiber pair capable of carrying up to 960 gigabits per second (Gbit/s). By having a high fiber count, Unity is able to offer more capacity at lower unit costs.
Unity is expected to initially increase Trans-Pacific lit cable capacity by about 20 percent, with the potential to add up to 7.68 terabits per second (Tbit/s) of bandwidth across the Pacific.
Media response
Writing in ''The New York Times'' in September 2007, Saul Hansell said of Google's anticipated involvement in Unity that:
"Google may be the ultimate do-it-yourself company. From the start, Google's sense of its own engineering superiority, combined with a tightwad sensibility, led it to build its own servers. It writes its own operating systems. It is now threatening to buy wireless carrier spectrum and it is getting ready to hire ships that will lay a data communications cable across the Pacific..."
See also
* List of international submarine communications cables
This is a list of international submarine communications cables. It does not include domestic cable systems, such as those on the coastlines of Japan, Italy, and Brazil. All the cable systems listed below have landing points in two or more coun ...
* FASTER (cable system)
FASTER is a trans-Pacific submarine communications cable that went live during the last week of June 2016. The cable has a total length of approximately 11,629 km and a capacity of 60Tb/s.
The companies involved in the project include:
* Goo ...
References
External links
* http://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/submarine-cable/unityeac-pacific
{{KDDI
KDDI
Google
Submarine communications cables in the Pacific Ocean
Japan–United States relations
2010 establishments in California
2010 establishments in Japan