Microsoft and Facebook have announced that they will be building an undersea cable from the east coast of the US to Spain to help speed up their global internet services.
The cable, designed to have a bandwidth of as much as 160 terabytes per second, will be operated by Telxius, a unit of Telefonica SA
The cable will travel from northern Virginia in the US, a major junction point in the global internet, to Bilbao in Spain, and then onward to the rest of Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The companies said it will be highest-capacity undersea cable yet across the Atlantic.
Microsoft is seeing increased demand for speedy and reliable access to services like Skype and its cloud-based Office programs while Facebook needs faster speeds as video plays a bigger role in social media. Microsoft purchased a stake in Facebook in 2007 and the two companies have worked together on initiatives like search in the past.
The construction is supposed to start in August 2016 and finish October 2017
