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Google and Facebook to build 8,000-mile undersea internet cable

 James Titcomb 

Google and Facebook have teamed up to build an 8,000-mile undersea internet cable between Los Angeles and Hong Kong, the longest and fastest internet cable across the Pacific.

The project, a collaboration between the two internet giants, as well as Pacific Light Data Communication and TE SubCom, two telecoms companies, is intended to improve connection speeds between the two continents.

It is one of a number of mammoth undersea cables that Google and Facebook have invested in as they attempt to boost the speed and reliability of their own internet services. Both are also investing heavily in projects to bring internet access to far-flung areas of the world with ambitious projects such as solar-powered internet drones and gigantic balloons.

The Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN), set to be launched in the summer of 2018, will have an estimated capacity of 120 terabits per second. To put that into perspective, it would be able to transport every book ever written in the space of a few seconds.

It is twice as fast as the quickest trans-Pacific internet cable currently available, which is also backed by Google.

While there are already hundreds of undersea internet cables, technology and telecoms groups are investing heavily in long-distance ones as internet users increasingly rely on high-speed connections and cloud computing, where information must be quickly relayed between computers and enormous physical data centres.

As well as improving direct speeds, they also mean more reliability for internet users, increasing the number of lanes down which data can travel. Google, Microsoft and Amazon are competing fiercely in the fast-growing cloud computing market, which allows companies to outsource infrastructure to them.

"PLCN will bring lower latency, more security and greater bandwidth to Google users in the APAC region," said Google's Brian Quigley.

While both companies have a presence in Hong Kong, they are absent in China, which censors the internet strictly.

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Amazon challenges Spotify and Apple with music service

 James Titcomb 

Amazon never did topple iTunes as the world’s biggest music download store, but the internet retailer is taking a second bite at Apple by launching a music streaming service.

The company unveiled Amazon Music Unlimited, a challenger to Apple Music and Spotify that will at first launch in the US, on Wednesday.

While it enters a crowded market that also includes the French streaming service Deezer, Google Play Music and Tidal, which is partly owned by a group of artists including the rapper Jay-Z, Amazon is aiming to undercut its rivals by offering discounts to members of its Prime subscription service.

It will still cost the monthly $9.99 that equivalent services charge, but Amazon is subsidising the service for those who pay for Prime, the annual subscription that includes free next-day delivery.

Prime members will pay $7.99 a month, with Amazon paying the difference. To date, music labels have resisted attempts to push the costs of streaming services below $9.99, a price that has stuck for years.

Amazon is also selling a $3.99 a month version that will play exclusively on the Echo, the company’s Wi-Fi speaker. It said the service will launch in the UK, Germany and Austria later this year, although pricing was not announced.

The launch extends Amazon’s ambitions in music. In 2008, it launched a rival download service to iTunes which aimed to undercut Apple on price, as well as offering songs without the digital rights management that iTunes employed.

However, Apple continues to dominate a shrinking download market. Amazon also offers an on-demand service as part of its Prime membership with a more limited song selection.

While the company enters a competitive field for music streaming, it may see the discounts it offers to Prime users as a way of encouraging listeners to sign up for Prime itself. Those who sign up to Prime spend several times more than other shoppers, so Amazon is testing new ways to encourage people to sign up.

Music industry revenues from streaming are due to overtake those from downloads this year. In 2015, the number of people using a streaming service rose from 41m to 68m./telegraph