Four U.S. and Japanese companies seeking to become the "carriers' carrier" will construct an underwater telecommunications cable between the two countries, the firms announced Thursday in Tokyo.
Pacific Crossing (PC-1), a 20,000-km fiber optic cable project, will be the first privately owned and operated underwater cable network crossing the Pacific, said Gary Winnick, joint chairman of Global Crossing Ltd.
Global Crossing is an undersea cable system developer based in Bermuda. The planned cable system is expected to be operational within two years, at a cost reportedly estimated at $1 billion.