Microsoft and Facebook have clinched the deal to build a new, “MAREA” – a state-of-the art underwater cable across the Atlantic Ocean.
The new cable aims to settle the growing customer’s demand for high-speed internet, reliable connections for cloud and online services.
According to the news release, Microsoft and Facebook have joined hands "to accelerate the development of the next-generation of Internet infrastructure and support the explosion of data consumption and rapid growth of their respective cloud and online services."
The parties have cleared conditions to go “Contract-In-Force” with their plans. The construction of the cable will commence in August 2016 and is estimated to get completed by October 2017.
Frank Rey, director, global network acquisition, Microsoft Corp, said, “In order to better serve our customers and provide the type of reliable and low-latency connectivity they deserve, we are continuing to invest in new and innovative ways to continuously upgrade both the Microsoft Cloud and the global Internet infrastructure. This marks an important new step in building the next generation infrastructure of the Internet.”
The 6,600 km MAREA cable will be the highest-capacity underwater cable to ever cross the Atlantic - eight fibre pairs and an initial estimated design capacity of 160 Tbps. The new 6,600 km submarine cable system, to be operated and managed by Telxius, will also be the first to connect the United States to southern Europe: from Virginia Beach, Virginia to Bilbao, Spain and then beyond to network hubs in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
“As the world is increasingly moving toward a future based on cloud computing, Microsoft continues to invest in our cloud infrastructure to meet current and future growing global demand for our more than 200 cloud services, including Bing, Office 365, Skype, Xbox Live and the Microsoft Azure platform,” explained Christian Belady, general manager, datacenter strategy, planning and development, Microsoft Corp.
This new “open” design brings significant benefits for customers: lower costs and easier equipment upgrades which leads to faster growth in bandwidth rates since the system can evolve at the pace of optical technology innovation.
According to Najam Ahmad, vice president of network engineering at Facebook, the company wants to make it possible for people to have deep connections and shared experiences with the people who matter to them most - anywhere in the world, and at any time.
As one of the largest cloud operators in the world, Microsoft has invested more than $15 billion in building a resilient cloud infrastructure and cloud services. Microsoft has now announced 32 Azure regions around the world with 24 generally available today.
Microsoft and Facebook are working with Telxius, Telefónica’s telecommunications infrastructure company, building upon their longstanding experience in subsea cables on this innovative new system. Telxius will serve as the operator of the system and sell capacity as part of their wholesale infrastructure business.
