Google announced its participation in the HAVFRUE subsea cable project across the north Atlantic and in the Hong Kong to Guam cable system, both of which are expected to enter service in 2019.
In addition, Google confirmed that it is on-track to open cloud regions (data centers) in the Netherlands and Montreal this calendar quarter, followed by Los Angeles, Finland and Hong Kong.
HAVFRUE is the newly-announced new subsea cable project that will link New Jersey to the Jutland Peninsula of Denmark with a branch landing in County Mayo, Ireland. Optional branch extensions to Northern and Southern Norway are also included in the design. The HAVFRU system will be owned and operated by multiple parties, including Aqua Comms, Bulk Infrastructure, Facebook, Google and others. Aqua Comms, the Irish cable owner/operator and carriers’ carrier, will serve as the system operator and landing party in U.S.A., Ireland, and Denmark. Bulk Infrastructure of Norway will be the owner and landing party for the Norwegian branch options. The HAFVRUE subsea cable system will be optimized for coherent transmission and will offer a cross-sectional cable capacity of 108Tbps, scalable to higher capacities utilizing future generation SLTE technology. SubCom will incorporate their Wavelength Selective Switching Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Multiplexer (WSS-ROADM) for flexible wavelength allocation over the system design life. It is the first new cable system in almost two decades that will traverse the North Atlantic to connect mainland Northern Europe to the U.S.A. TE Subcom is the system supplier.
The 3,900 kilometer Hong Kong – Guam Cable system (HK-G) will offer 48 Tbps of design capacity when it comes into service in late 2019. It features 100G optical transmission capabilities and is being built by RTI Connectivity Pte. Ltd. (RTI-C) and NEC Corporation with capital from the Fund Corporation for the Overseas Development of Japan’s ICT and Postal Services Inc. (Japan ICT Fund), along with syndicated loans from Japanese institutions including NEC Capital Solutions Limited, among others. In Hong Kong, the cable is slated to land in Tseung Kwan O (TKO) and will land in Piti, Guam at the recently completed Teleguam Holdings LLC (GTA) cable landing station. HK-G will land in the same facility as the Southeast Asia – United States Cable System (SEA-US).
Google also noted its direct investment in 11 cables, including those planned or under construction:
Cable Year in service Landings
Curie 2019 US, Chile
Havfrue 2019 US, IE, DK
HK-G 2019 HK, GU
Indigo 2019 SG, ID, AU
PLCN 2019 HK, LA
Tannat 2018 BR, UY
Junior 2018 Rio, Santos
Monet 2017 US, BR
FASTER 2016 US, JP, TW
SJC 2013 JP, HK, SG
UNITY 2010 US, JP
