Microsoft and Facebook’s transatlantic subsea internet cable is now complete

In a move that could revolutionise how we use the internet, the mammoth undersea cable project across the Atlantic is now complete.

More than 11,000 feet below the ocean’s surface lies a subsea supercable that is expected to provide 160 terabits of data per second (Tbps).

According to Microsoft, that’s 16 million times faster than an average home internet connection and is the equivalent of streaming 71 million HD videos at the same time.

Dubbed Marea, which means “tide” in Spanish, the line will be jointly owned by Telxius, Facebook and Microsoft. It won’t be operational until early 2018.

Marea is believed to weigh almost 10.25 million pounds.

In a blog post, Microsoft said the need for a new cable became all too obvious when Hurricane Sandy hit the US East Coast in 2012 causing billions of dollars worth of damage to internet technology by shutting down wireless connections and home phone services, while flooding knocked out the servers.

“It was a major disruption,” said Microsoft executive Frank Rey. “The entire network between North America and Europe was isolated for a number of hours.

Microsoft has since looked at making transatlantic connections more resilient.

“Marea comes at a critical time,” said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft.

“There is no question that the demand for data flows across the Atlantic will continue to increase.”

Marea, which is slightly wider than a garden hose, “contains eight pairs of fibre optic cables encircled by copper, a hard-plastic protective layer and a waterproof coating”.

Google has also invested in two cables that run from the US to Japan and other countries in Asia.