The American corporation Google is investing USD 1 billion in laying two new fiber optic Internet cables that will connect Japan with the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam, the technology giant said in a statement.
Together with several partners, including KDDI, ARTERIA, Citadel Pacific and the Community of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), “new fiber optic routes are being established between the US mainland and Japan”. The implementation of these projects will “increase the reliability and resilience of digital communications between the United States, Japan and a number of Pacific Island nations and territories”, Google said in a statement.
The cables will be provided by Japan's NEC, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world.
As previously reported, Google is also involved in laying fiber optic internet cables to remote islands in the southwest Pacific under an agreement between the United States and Australia. The project includes a cable connection between two US territories - American Samoa (formerly Eastern Samoa) and the island of Guam with Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Fiji, Nauru, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, the Cook Islands, Wallis and Futuna Islands and Micronesia.