In fact, these companies directly invested more than €75 billion ($100 billion) in Internet infrastructure over the last three years, with spending up by about 10% annually over this period. Moreover, they participated in consortia that invested more than €500 million in laying a trans-Pacific submarine fiber optic cable, which has been operational since 2010, and an 8,300-kilometer (5,200-mile) cable from Southeast Asia to Japan that came on-stream last year.