Tech Firms Push to Control Web's Pipes

Technology giants like Google and Facebook are expanding efforts to control more of the world's Internet backbone, raising tensions with telecom companies over who runs the Web.

In the past year, these companies that supply much of the world's online content have ramped up their investment in Internet infrastructure. The moves include bringing online new submarine and underground cables they have funded, striking long-term agreements to lease so-called dark fiber, and building their own networking hardware. In the process, they are beginning to rival some of the telecom companies that count them as clients. Google has spent years piecing together a network of private fiber-optic cables and now controls more than 100,000 miles of routes around the world, said one person familiar with its assets. That is bigger than the size of the continental US network run by Sprint, which covers less than 40,000 miles. Executives at the tech companies say they are aiming to reduce costs, improve the performance of their Internet services, and guarantee they have enough capacity to support the growing traffic in online video, photos, games and other services generated by their businesses. The development is troubling for many telecom companies which say they are reluctant to relinquish control of those lines to their biggest customers. On one hand, the projects are bringing a fresh source of investment to an industry dogged for more than a decade by falling prices and excess capacity. But the industry is already grappling with the concern that it will be reduced to "dumb pipes"—simple conduits for valuable traffic. The current trend, they fear, could downgrade companies even further to mere builders of those pipes.