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>Firmina will improve access to Google services for users in South America...giving users fast, low-latency access to Google products such as Search, Gmail and

>Firmina will improve access to Google services for users in South America...giving users fast, low-latency access to Google products such as Search, Gmail and YouTube, as well as Google Cloud services When companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft build cables do they ever let people besides themselves use it for a price? It would be unfortunate if millions of people had no choice but to use Google etc services because they were the only ones that performed well enough.

plerpin 5y ago
It's vertical integration. As long as we're wishing for fairness I wish Apple would share those tasty M1 processors with the rest of the non-Mac world.
- walterbell 5y ago
  Some former M1 designers are now at Qualcomm, working for PC OEMs: https://medium.com/silicon-reimagined/performance-delivered-a-new-way-8f0f5ed283d5 https://medium.com/silicon-reimagined/performance-delivered-... https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2021/03/16/qualcomm-completes-acquisition-nuvia https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2021/03/16/qualcomm-c...
pkaye 5y ago
Isn't peering a key part of how the Internet works? I can also see any company using Google Cloud Services would benefit with connecting to users in South America.
- toast0 5y ago
  Peering won't get non-Google traffic on a Google cable. But as a sibling points out, Google moving traffic to its own cable may free up room on existing cables. Most of these cables are built in partnership with other companies, often including major transit providers.
skybrian 5y ago
There is competition. Businesses that aren't large enough to fund their own cables buy bandwidth from large ISP's, which are likely to invest in more undersea cables when they anticipate selling more bandwidth. Meanwhile, the big content providers are using two thirds of the bandwidth. It seems like if everyone suddenly switched to something else then that would cause a lot of disruption, but not if the change is gradual.
jchw 5y ago
They fund some cables, but most of them are not private to my knowledge. A cursory search suggests that of 16 undersea cable investments by Google, this one is one of six that are private to Google. So maybe there can be some partial relief in that the cables actually have a diverse set of owners and funders still. I’m not sure where this puts us practically.
darksaints 5y ago
Well the upside is that all of the traffic that would normally go to Google is gonna be shifted towards their own private line. That may not be a latency improvement like Google services would get, but it is still a throughput improvement.
thurn 5y ago
cables are almost never exclusive, the economics just make more sense if you have partners because adding extra capacity before you start laying cable has a very low marginal cost
virtuallynathan 5y ago
Generally yes in the case that other parties help out — for example Marea was Microsoft, Facebook, and Telexius. Telexius sells capacity on that cable. Others are Google exclusive, and they do not currently sell capacity to my knowledge.

plerpin 5y ago

It's vertical integration. As long as we're wishing for fairness I wish Apple would share those tasty M1 processors with the rest of the non-Mac world.

walterbell 5y ago
Some former M1 designers are now at Qualcomm, working for PC OEMs: https://medium.com/silicon-reimagined/performance-delivered-a-new-way-8f0f5ed283d5 https://medium.com/silicon-reimagined/performance-delivered-... https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2021/03/16/qualcomm-completes-acquisition-nuvia https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2021/03/16/qualcomm-c...

pkaye 5y ago

Isn't peering a key part of how the Internet works? I can also see any company using Google Cloud Services would benefit with connecting to users in South America.

toast0 5y ago
Peering won't get non-Google traffic on a Google cable. But as a sibling points out, Google moving traffic to its own cable may free up room on existing cables. Most of these cables are built in partnership with other companies, often including major transit providers.

skybrian 5y ago

There is competition. Businesses that aren't large enough to fund their own cables buy bandwidth from large ISP's, which are likely to invest in more undersea cables when they anticipate selling more bandwidth. Meanwhile, the big content providers are using two thirds of the bandwidth. It seems like if everyone suddenly switched to something else then that would cause a lot of disruption, but not if the change is gradual.

jchw 5y ago

They fund some cables, but most of them are not private to my knowledge. A cursory search suggests that of 16 undersea cable investments by Google, this one is one of six that are private to Google. So maybe there can be some partial relief in that the cables actually have a diverse set of owners and funders still. I’m not sure where this puts us practically.

darksaints 5y ago

Well the upside is that all of the traffic that would normally go to Google is gonna be shifted towards their own private line. That may not be a latency improvement like Google services would get, but it is still a throughput improvement.

thurn 5y ago

cables are almost never exclusive, the economics just make more sense if you have partners because adding extra capacity before you start laying cable has a very low marginal cost

virtuallynathan 5y ago

Generally yes in the case that other parties help out — for example Marea was Microsoft, Facebook, and Telexius. Telexius sells capacity on that cable. Others are Google exclusive, and they do not currently sell capacity to my knowledge.