Perhaps you've heard that Google and Facebook have joined the Pacific Light Cable Project.
We've compiled several resources to explain why content providers are getting into the cable game. (And we also have some insight on the cable in question.)
The Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) will be the first direct fiber-optic submarine cable system between Los Angeles and Hong Kong.
And the PLCN is impressive. We're looking at 12,800 km of fiber and an estimated cable capacity of 120 Tbps. (This potential capacity would be the highest on the trans-Pacific route.)
Only a few years ago, the network requirements of content providers weren't notable. Today, the amount of capacity deployed by private network operators - largely content providers - has outpaced Internet backbone operators.
Faced with the prospect of ongoing massive bandwidth growth, owning new submarine cables makes sense.
(And before you ask about content providers' need for fiber pairs everywhere or Netflix's subsea capacity requirements, catch our mythbusters series, in which Tim Stronge and Alan Mauldin take on these popular notions.)
You'd be correct. This isn't their first rodeo.
As TeleGeography’s Jon Hjembo notes in the link above, seeing more content providers get in on the undersea cable game is a logical response to massive increases in demand from a handful of major content networks.