The upcoming project is called Marea. It will cover about 4,000 miles [6,437 Kilometers] between Virginia and Spain with eight pairs of fiber optic strands which would make its highest capacity link across the Atlantic. The two tech giants have collaborated with Spanish Internet carrier, Telefonica SA to make the cable, so it is likely that the service will start from next year. The fibre optic cable will provide speeds up to 160 terabits per second of bandwidth, about 16 million times the bandwidth of the normal home Internet connection. It will let the two companies to move vast amounts of information between the many computer data centers and networks in a systematic manner. Fast connectivity is especially important to Facebook which aims to convince users across the world to broadcast live video and meet in virtual reality. These two activities can eat huge amounts of bandwidth. “If you look at the cable systems across the Atlantic, a majority land in the Northeast somewhere,” says Najam Ahmad, Facebook’s vice president of network engineering. “This gives us so many more options.” However, the companies refused to give a cost estimation for the cable. New trans Atlantic cables normally need more than $200 million to construct.
