Google's US - Japan undersea cable commissioned

The 5,600-mile (9,000km) Google-backed trans-Pacific broadband cable system named FASTER has become operational.

The cable will cater to the growing demand for broadband internet connections between North America and Asia.

"From the very beginning of the project, we repeatedly said to each other, 'faster, Faster and FASTER,' and at one point it became the project name, and today it becomes a reality," said a statement from Hiromitsu Todokoro, chairman of the FASTER management committee.

Built by Japan's NEC Corporation, the project had the support of China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, Google, KDDI and Singtel.

AFP reported quoting Kenichi Yoneyama, project manager at NEC's submarine network division, "This epoch-making cable will not only bring benefits to the United States and Japan, but to the entire Asia-Pacific region," AFP Relaxnews reported.

Singtel vice president Ooi Seng Keat said the new cable "provides continuous connectivity and sufficiently high capacity for cloud, video streaming, analytics and the Internet of Things, that will help spur innovation on both sides of the Pacific to stimulate the growth of the digital economy."

FASTER, which links Japan and the west coast of the US had been completed and is ready for service following end-to-end testing earlier this week.

Thanks to the use of optimised fibre throughout, the submarine portion, the six-fibre pair cable can deliver 60 terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth across the Pacific, which is around 10 million times faster than the standard cable modem.

Construction of the system, which is estimated to have a total investment of $300 million, was announced in August 2014.

It is the first trans-Pacific submarine cable built solely by NEC Corporation, and will deploy the latest 100 Gbps digital coherent optical transmission technology.