Google, Facebook are bulding a Big cable to connect Los Angeles with Hong Kong

Google, Facebook and telecom and undersea infrastructure developer TE SubCom and PLDC (Pacific Light Data Communication Co. Ltd.) are teaming up to build a 120 Terabits per second (Tbps) submarine cable that will connect Los Angeles with Hong Kong. 

The new 12,800 km cable, called  the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN),  will be the highest-capacity trans-Pacific cable yet. The companies did not say how much they will invest in the new ultra high-speed link.

“PLCN will provide enough capacity for Hong Kong to have 80 million concurrent HD video conference calls with Los Angeles,” said Brian Quigley, director of the Google Networking Infrastructure. “PLCN will bring lower latency, more security, and greater bandwidth to Google users in the APAC region.”

PLCN is expected to become operational in 2018.

"PLCN will be among the lowest-latency fiber optic routes between Hong Kong and the US and the first to connect directly using ultra-high-capacity transmission," PLDC chairman Wei Junkang said.
"It is certainly gratifying that global technology companies like Google and Facebook have become co-investors in PLCN." The current title for the highest-capacity trans-Pacific route is held by FASTER, another cable system backed by Google.

The Mountain View-based company now has and ownership stake in six submarine cables. Increasingly, tech companies are investing in this kind of infrastructure, in part because the cloud backends that these companies want users to use need to have reliable, fast connections.