The 10,500km system connecting Chile and the US, with a branch landing in Panama, is in the process of being connected to Google’s network and due to start transmitting data in Q2 2020.
Designed with four 18Tbps fibre-optic pairs, Curie delivers 72Tbps of needed bandwidth to South America and will power such Google services as Gmail, Search, YouTube and Google Cloud.
In April of this year, the system landed in Valparaíso, Chile, the first new cable to do so for 19 years. The subsea cable has been engineered, manufactured and installed in partnership with SubCom (then TE SubCom) after announcing their collaboration back in 2018.
At the same time Google has also confirmed that it is adding a branch of the Curie cable to Panama. Once live, the branch will enhance its connectivity and bandwidth to Central America while at the same time enabling Google to connect to o9ther networks which in turn will create added resiliency to our global cloud infrastructure. SubCom will also supply the branch cable to Panama.
“By owning and operating our own subsea cables we can add a layer of security beyond what’s available over the public internet and can plan effectively for the future capacity needs of our customers and users around the world,” said Google in a blog post.
Curie marks Google’s third subsea cable. Back in 2018, the company commissioned Dunant, a 6,600km subsea cable connecting France and the US. Orange as signed on as landing partner for the system in France.
Since then the company has also commissioned another fully funded subsea cable called Equiano that will connect Africa and Europe, using a Portugal to South Africa route. It is to be built by Alcatel Submarine Networks and is due for service in 2021.
