Google announce on Wednesday to build the Firmina subsea cable, an open subsea cable that will run from the East Coast of the United States to Las Toninas, Argentina, with additional landings in Praia Grande, Brazil, and Punta del Este, Uruguay.

According to Google, Firmina will be the longest cable in the world capable of running entirely from a single power source at one end of the cable if its other power source(s) become temporarily unavailable—a resilience boost at a time when reliable connectivity is more important than ever. While shorter cable systems can enjoy the higher availability of power feeding from a single end, longer cables with large fiber-pair counts make this harder to do. Firmina breaks this barrier. Highly-resilient design is accomplished by supplying the cable with a voltage 20% higher than with previous systems.

Firmina cable system will consist of 12 fiber pairs, the cable will carry traffic quickly and securely between North and South America, giving users fast, low-latency access to Google products such as Search, Gmail and YouTube, as well as Google Cloud services.


Firmina subsea cable.jpgFirmina Subsea Cable, Source: Google


As other Google's subsea cables, seeking to honor a luminary who worked to advance human understanding and social justice, the Firmina cable is named after Maria Firmina dos Reis (1825 - 1917), a Brazilian abolitionist and author whose 1859 novel, Úrsula, depicted life for Afro-Brazilians under slavery. A mixed-race woman and intellectual, Firmina is considered Brazil’s first novelist. 

According to Google, it now has investments in 16 subsea cables, including private cables such as Firmina, Dunant, Equiano and Grace Hopper, and consortium cables like Echo, JGA, INDIGO, and Havfrue. For more details, please refer to the Complete List of Google's Subsea Cable Investments.