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Google on Wednesday said it is building an open subsea cable that will connect the East Coast of the US and Las Toninas, Argentina with additional landings in Brazil and Uruguay.
With the new cable, the tech giant aims to bolster internet connectivity to users in South America and enhance its existing cable investments in the region.
The Firmina cable, named after Brazilian abolitionist and author Maria Firmina dos Reis, will be the longest cable in the world. It is capable of running entirely from a single power source at one end of the cable if its other power source(s) become temporarily unavailable, Google said in a blog post.
“With 12 fibre pairs, the cable will carry traffic quickly and securely between North and South America, giving users fast, low-latency access to Google products such as Search, Gmail and YouTube, as well as Google Cloud services,” Google added.
With Firmina, Google has now investments in 16 subsea cables including Dunant, Equiano and Grace Hopper.
The announcement comes at a time when the demand for cloud and internet services has surged due to an increased online activity due to the pandemic.
