Facscinating, so now I'm completely confused. If they can pull this cable for 300M$US total that is a huge improvement in costs from previous efforts. Now I feel compelled to track down what changed that made this an order of magnitude less costly to do.

EDIT: this link http://submarinenetworks.com/systems/trans-pacific/unity informs me that I am completely wrong on the costs. Apparently it is really "only" 300M$ to lay a cable from here to there.