Microsoft, Facebook to build 6,600 km subsea cable for faster internet

WASHINGTON: Microsoft and Facebook have joined hands to lay a giant state-of-the-art sub-sea cable across the Atlantic Ocean connecting the US with Europe and beyond so as to facilitate faster speed and access to the Internet.

The new "MAREA" cable will help meet the growing customer demand for high speed, reliable connections for cloud and online services for Microsoft, Facebook and their customers, a media release said.

Construction of the cable will commence in August 2016 with completion expected in October 2017, it said.

Microsoft and Facebook are collaborating on this system to accelerate the development of the next-generation of Internet infrastructure and support the explosion of data consumption and rapid growth of their respective cloud and online services, the release said.

MAREA will be the highest-capacity subsea cable to ever cross the Atlantic - eight fiber pairs and an initial estimated design capacity of 160 terabits per second of bandwidth -- about 16 million times the bandwidth of home Internet connection.

The 6,600-km submarine cable system would be operated and managed by Telxius.

"The MAREA trans-Atlantic cable we're building with Facebook and Telxius will provide new, low-latency connectivity that will help meet the increasing demand for higher-speed capacity across the Atlantic," said Christian Belady, general manager, Datacenter Strategy, Planning & Development, Microsoft Corp.

"Facebook wants to make it possible for people to have deep connections and shared experiences with the people who matter to them most -- anywhere in the world , and at any time," said Najam Ahmad, vice president of Network Engineering at Facebook.

Microsoft India (R&D) Pvt. Ltd.