Seeking New Arenas to Conquer, Google Eyes the Oceans

Attention underwater cable specialists: Google wants you!

Google is preparing to lay an undersea data cable beneath the Pacific Ocean. Australian telecommunications trade magazine Comms Day today reported that Google met with potential partners last week in Sydney for "high-level talks" on the secret project.

The proposed multi-terabit cable, code-named Unity, has been in the works for months and would launch in 2009. Google spokesman Barry Schnitt offered Comms Day a Googliciously opaque statement.

"Additional infrastructure for the Internet is good for users and there are a number of proposals to add a Pacific submarine cable," he said. "We're not commenting on any of these plans."

In Google-speak, that's tantamount to a yes. The magazine suggests that Asia Netcom and Telstra are among those eyeing a linkup with the company.

Google is looking for "submarine cable specialists" to actually lay the cable, the company confirmed to Comms Day.

"It should come as no surprise that Google is looking for qualified people to help secure additional network capacity," Schnitt was quoted as saying. "In some parts of the world, these people will work with submarine cables because there is a lot of ocean out there."

Indeed.

Per the deal, Comms Day reports that Google would control a portion of the cable, "handing it a tremendous cost advantage over rivals such as MSN and Yahoo, and also potentially enabling it to peer with Asia I.S.P.'s behind their international gateways—considerably improving the affordability of Internet services across Asia Pacific."

This type of move is consistent with Google's long-standing, stealth mission to build the world's largest data network. Google has already begun placing large data centers at critical nodes of the the global communications grid, such as the gargantuan "carrier hotel" in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood.

Comms Day said it reported on February 8 that Google "had begun peering with I.S.P.'s, enabling them to reduce their reliance on transit services via Tier 1 non-peering major IP networks such as Level 3 and AT&T." Translation: Google is competing with big phone companies and other data-transmission providers.

Last year, the Village Voice reported that the network-neutral "Meet-Me room" at Google's Chelsea headquarters would enable the company to "bypass many of the major telecommunications firms and interface directly with Tier 2 service providers such as Level 3 Communications or XO Communications, which also are located in the building."

The news that Google is looking at a deep-sea Pacific fiber line is further evidence that company is on a mission to find the fastest, cheapest, and most efficient way to "light up" its network.

The New York Times's Saul Hansell observes that the Unity initiative puts Google in direct competition with Verizon, which is building a $500 million terrabit cable, called the Trans-Pacific Express from the U.S. to China.

Google is already locked in a "holy war" with Verizon over the F.C.C.'s upcoming 700 Mhz wireless spectrum auction.

by Sam Gustin