Google announced yesterday that it is launching an initiative with 6 other companies to lay a new, multi-terabit submarine trans-Pacific cable to increase its capacity for Google services like Gmail, Google Search and Google Earth.

 As more and more people conduct online searches and interact with applications like Gmail, Google Earth and YouTube, we’ve had to think outside the box to create a more scalable, affordable and easy to manage network that meets our users’ needs worldwide. One of the biggest challenges we face is staying ahead of our broadband capacity needs, especially across Asia.

“Unity,” as it is called, will address increasing bandwidth demands but will not launch Google into the network operator category.  Google is not competing with other service providers or telecoms, but just laying cable for itself and its own services.

 If you’re wondering whether we’re going into the undersea cable business, the answer is no.

The construction of the physical Internet still totally baffles me.  When the SEA-ME-WE 4, Flag Telecom and FALCON cables were cut, the way the thousands of routers redirected traffic and essentially “healed” from the broken connections without much human involvement was pretty incredible.

Submarine communications cables, as they are generally called, were first used in 1850 to carry signals from telegraphs.  

They later were used for telephony and now link every continent except Antarctica by providing all of our digital content over fiber optic cables.These cables have been cut, stolen, tapped, crushed by avalanches, and improved from their early copper construction to today’s optical fibers.  It’s amazing how a cable only a few inches in diameter can carry the data for millions of people simultaneously.