Google Will Build A Huge Undersea Cable From Canada To Japan & Here's How It'll Impact You
It's the width of a garden hose and it'll be placed along the bottom of the Pacific Ocean!
Google engineers prepare the cable on a boat. Right: Equipment is being carried by a crane next to a boat.
The first-ever fibre-optic cable between Canada and Asia will be ready for use next year, Google has announced.
The tech giant said it will lay down a new undersea cable, called Topaz, along the Pacific Ocean floor between Port Alberni on Vancouver Island and Mie and Ibaraki prefectures in Japan.
The cable, which Google said is about the width of a garden hose, will help people have faster access to services like Gmail and YouTube when it begins operating in 2023.
According to Google, "While Topaz is the first trans-Pacific fibre cable to land on the West Coast of Canada, it's not the first communication cable to connect to Vancouver Island."
It says that in the 1960s, a copper undersea cable linked Vancouver with Honolulu, Hawaii; Sydney, Australia; and Auckland, New Zealand, to improve international phone networks.
The Tseshaht, Maa-nulth and Hupacasath First Nations each issued statements of support for the project.
"Tseshaht is very proud of this collaboration and our partnership with Google, who has been very respectful and thoughtful in its engagement with our nation," said Tseshaht First Nation Elected Chief Councillor Ken Watts.
Chief Charlie Cootes, president of the Maa-nulth Treaty Society, added, "We would also like to acknowledge the sensitivity that Google Canada expressed during our talks in regard to the pain and trauma experienced by our people as a result of residential school experience."
Elected Chief Councillor Brandy Lauder of the Hupacasath First Nation said Google's relationship with the Nation "is appreciated and has good energy behind it."