Anyone here in East Asia during Taiwan’s Hengchun earthquake back in December 2006 remembers how badly Internet and other communications services were affected when multiple submarine cables were damaged. And I’m sure everyone out here gets pretty frustrated over the slow speed of Internet connection between China and North America. So I’m confident everyone will join me in saluting Google and the five telecoms operators Big G is partnering with in laying down a new $300 million fiber optic cable connecting North America with Japan. The five operators, brought together by Google in a group calling itself Unity, are SingTel, Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI, and Pacnet. NEC Corporation and Tyco Telecommunications have been selected to build it, and it’s expected to be operational in two years — in Q1 2010.