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60Tbps internet cable from Asia to America will plug into Telx barn

Must go FASTER, must go FASTER

US data center outfit Telx, target of a takeover bid by Digital Realty, has gone offshore for the first time, joining the Google-backed FASTER submarine cable consortium.

Telx's Hillsboro server barn in Oregon, US, will be the termination point for an undersea cable that will link the Pacific Northwest to Asia. The fiber-optic pipeline will carry up to 60Tbps of internet traffic between the two continents.

The other partners in the US$300 million (£192m) cable project, due to come into operation in 2016, are China Mobile, China Telecom, Global Transit, KDDI, and SingTel.

Telx's VP of business development Don Schuett told Data Center Knowledge that its facility would be able to offer carrier neutrality, whereas most cables terminate in an exchange operated by one of the investing carriers.

In that context, it's worth noting that all of the carrier partners in FASTER are Asian: the only American company in the group is Google, and the web goliath has more interest in avoiding the dead hand of major carriers.

The Telx-terminating cable was first announced last year by NEC, which at the time said FASTER would be the highest-capacity cable on the trans-pacific route.

Construction on the 5592-mile (9,000-km) cable began last month, when the cable was hauled ashore to the Japanese landing site in Shima (in the Mie Prefecture, east of Osaka). ®

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