The recent quakes in Taiwan highlighted a lack of redundancy in the Pacific, where fiber runs have about half the capacity found across the Atlantic. A number of companies are planning to rectify that -- including Google. The search giant recently joined a coalition of Asia-Pac telecom companies in a project named "Unity," which will run a multi-terabit undersea communications cable across the Pacific sometime in 2009.

Verizon announced back in 2006 they'd be taking part in a different, $500 million project to run a new, 11,000 mile cable from the United States directly to mainland China. Construction started on the Trans-Pacific Express project last September, and this week Verizon got the FCC's approval to land the fiber line in Oregon. The new pipe should provide some very serious bandwidth:According to Verizon, they're building out network facilities in Oregon to connect the TPE cable to their U.S. domestic network. The new cable will connect to the China mainland at Qingdao and Chongming. Additional landing points include Tanshui, Taiwan and Keoje, South Korea. The company says the project should be completed by August of this year.