Google, with some other players, is laying a transoceanic cable for data.
We’re not competing with telecom providers, but the volume of data we need to move around the world has grown to the point where in some cases we’ve exceeded the ability traditional players can offer. [From About the Unity bandwidth consortium]
Consider that a moment. A handful of companies — Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, Google, KDDI Corporation, Pacnet and SingTel — (well, more accurately, their customers) have saturated the network bandwidth provided by companies whose sole purpose is to provide network bandwidth.