Google has announced plans to build and operate two undersea cable systems that will connect the Middle East with southern Europe and Asia. One of the projects is the Blue Submarine Cable System which will tie Israel to Italy, Greece, and France.
The other has been dubbed the Raman Submarine Cable System and will connect Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, and India. The cables will be carrying 16 fibre optic pairs that will increase the network capacity and decrease latency.
Google announced this in a statement on Thursday, adding that the cables should be operational by 2024.
Raman honored
Some parts of the cables will connect on land in Israel with the help of the Bezeq internet provider. Google Cloud will collaborate with the Italian telecom company Sparkle.
The project was first announced last year but had not been confirmed as ‘officially in the works’ by Google until now. It has been reported in the media that the project will cost about $400 million.
The Raman cable is named after Indian physicist Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, who won the 1930 Novel Prize in physics for his work that would eventually form the basis for the technologies used in the cables.
Google is everywhere
Except for Antarctica, Google operates underseal cables with connections on every continent. The search engine’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., competes with other tech giants to build powerful networks to support the growing internet demand.
In June, Google announced Firmina, an undersea cable that will connect the US East Coast to Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.
In the meantime, the company faces antitrust lawsuits in the EU with pressure mounting in the US. It is becoming clear to many that the power held by Big Tech companies needs regulations.