Google said Monday that it was part of a six-company consortium that would build a new $300 million high-capacity underwater fiber-optic cable linking the United States and Japan.
Google is the only member of the consortium that is not a telecommunications company. When rumors of its participation in the project first surfaced last fall just as rumors of a Googlephone were spreading, they sparked speculation that Google, which joined a bid for wireless spectrum in the United States, had broad ambitions in the telecom area.
Google itself, however, is trying to preclude that speculation. The company is essentially confirming what The New York Times reported last fall when those rumors first spread: Google is joining the project to cut the high costs of sending massive amounts of search, video and application traffic around the world.
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