Microsoft has been investing significantly in fiber capacity over the past nine months

May 13, 2015

Microsoft has begun investing in undersea and terrestrial dark fiber infrastructure to meet a predicted rise in network traffic as adoption of cloud services grows, starting with a transatlantic cable to connect Europe and North America. The disclosure came in a blog posting from David Crowley, Microsoft’s managing director for network enablement, who discussed how the telecoms industry is in the midst of changes to accommodate the growing trend of data consumption.

“During Microsoft’s latest earnings [report] we shared that the Commercial Cloud division, which includes Azure, Office 365 and other services, grew 106 percent, and as we expand our cloud services and global infrastructure we need a strong subsea strategy to ensure our customers experience high availability access to their data,” he said.

To address this, Crowley said that Microsoft has been investing significantly in fiber capacity over the past nine months, engaging in partnerships that span multiple oceans and continents. The first such partnership is with Hibernia and Aqua Comms, which will each deliver a cable connection across the Atlantic to link Microsoft’s data centre infrastructure in North America to its facility in Ireland and on to the UK.

Microsoft has also joined a consortium that is investing in fiber connections across the Pacific, which will see the software company invest in its first physical landing station in the US connecting North America to Asia. The New Cross Pacific Cable Network will provide faster data connections for customers, as well as help Microsoft to compete on cloud costs, while creating jobs and spurring local economies, the firm claimed.