While Israel failed to reach an agreement for the establishment of diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, the two nations may still soon be connected at least by communications cables. Google has plans to build a 5,000 mile long fiber-optic network for an internet traffic corridor which will connect India with Europe, the Wall Street Journal reports.
This new $400 million corridor will have a segment which will go between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
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This news comes just after it was revealed that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday made a secret trip to Saudi Arabia for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The new internet traffic corridor will, of course, make tele-communications between Israel and Saudi Arabia much easier. Even though the Saudis may not be ready to have formal ties with Israel, it has been made clear that the two countries have been doing business behind the scenes for a while now. The relations have been based on mutual security threats and there may soon be more business conducted between Israeli and Saudi private enterprise, if only from behind the scenes.
The big tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others are all looking to building their own new high quality international communications networks, investing millions rather than wait for governments to do the work as they have done in the past. As the communications tech advances with faster internet speeds and the use of new types of cables for the infrastructure such investments by big have become obligatory for competition.
But Google may find itself with a big distraction as many American States are planning to bring their own anti-trust suits against it. This after The U.S. Justice Department filed its own such suit against Google just last month.
According to Reuters, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah are all planning on combining their state cases against Google parent company Alphabet with the Federal suit. The group of states is reportedly planning on filing their joint suit sometime in December.
It is not yet clear what remedies the American Department of Justice or the listed states will be seeking from the courts should their prove their respective cases. Google could be fined or be forced to sell off parts of its business in the same way that AT&T lost its telephone monopoly four decades ago.
And even if Google wins, it still loses in the end. Unless the suits are quickly dismissed by the courts, or a deal can be reached which does not cost Google too much, the company is looking at having the headache and distraction of fighting the anti-trust suits for years to come. Just think of all of the headlines.
And think about how much it will cost the company in legal fees.
One thing that all of the pundits seem to agree on is that this is not just about Google. The suit is also a shot across the bow of all of the huge conglomerates out there who must be concerned right now with the outcome of this case.
