Google today announced that it is joining a consortium of five other companies to build and operate FASTER, a new trans-Pacific cable system that will connect Japan to the west coast of the U.S. with initial speeds of up to 60 Tb/s. Other members of the consortium include China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, KDDI and SingTel. NEC will be the system supplier.

As Google’s vice president for its technical infrastructure Urs Hölzle writes on Google+ today, the company is making this investment to ensure that its products are fast and reliable, “and that requires a great network infrastructure, whether it’s for the more than a billion Android users or developers building products on Google Cloud Platform.”

This is not the first time Google is investing in a submarine cable. Back in 2008, it joined a very similar consortium in financing the 3.3 Tb/s trans-Pacific Unity cable that also links the U.S. to Japan. It also joined (through its subsidiary Google SJC Bermuda Ltd.) in building the $400 million Southeast Asia-Japan Cable, which went operational last June. That cable can handle up to 28 Tb/s.

On the U.S. side, the cable will extend to a number of hubs on the West Coast, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. This will get it pretty close to the company’s data center in The Dalles, Ore., and give that facility a better connection to Japan.

(via: The Next Web)