Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

In the past most HK and Singapore traffic to the US was routed via Tokyo due to the lack of direct single cable links. So two cables were required to get to the American West Coast. The total 100G costs of two cable solutions were and are still today high with the range from the lower $30Ks to the low 40Ks. Obviously, the Tokyo routing latency penalty is also very high. It is possible to get 100G two cable solutions in the $20K range, but only a few 100Gs are available at that price point.  In recent years the hyperscalers have recognized that current routing raises cost per bit, latency, and makes Tokyo a single point of failure on their Pacific networks. As a result, new American Tech cables connect Singapore directly to San Jose Equinix or Los Angeles Coresite data centers. For example, META is the lead consortium partner on the new 12 fibre pair Bifrost cable that lands at Grover Beach, California, Rosarita, Mexico, and Winema, Oregon. Keppel owns several fibre pai...

A point: SG1. Z point: FR5. Term: 3 Years. Routing: Avoids Marseille and clocks 139 ms RTD. 

 Term: 1 Year. NRC: $10K. Delivery: 8 to 10 weeks. A pt: SG1. Z pt: LA1. Remark: No Bifrost provider currently offers 10G waves.

The EU has given tens of millions of Euros in preliminary development funds to kick start an Arctic cable that would bypass North America and connect Northern Europe to Japan. There have been ongoing efforts for over a decade to execute such a project, the most recent incarnation is Polar Connect. The idea is to create a new, highly diverse and ultra-low latency route linking Europe to Asia that bypasses the politically unstable Middle East and the less-than-friendly and lukewarm American ally. Although there could be some Russian harassment due to concerns about the cable serving as a surveillance tool via sensors attached it, the path looks downright idyllic in terms of the political environment relative to the Middle East. However, a glance at the map shows the immense challenge. One of the unwritten rules of cable deployment is to avoid shallow waters. Most recently built cables head immediately from their landing points to deep sea as quickly as possible. Ships infe...

There is one problem that no arctic cable advocate ever mentions, namely ice scouring. Neither NorduNet nor the Polar Connect team will ever mention this challenge. It is taboo. Here's the problem. Only 10% of an iceberg lies above sea's surface. Salt water is more dense than fresh water and fresh water ice. Hence icebergs are largely undersea and their tooth can extend as deep as 250 meters. In the shallow waters surrounding the Bering Strait the average depth is well under 60 meters. So the tooth or fang of a large iceberg can carve grooves in the sea bed ranging from 50 centimeters to 20 meters. While most ice gouges aare closer to 50 centimeters than 20 meters, deep groves have accumulated on the sea floor. Moreover, the measured depth is not necessarily the original depth of the groove due to sediment burial over time. An iceberg damaged the North Alaskan Quintillian cable in June 2023. It dug a groove 3 meters deep into the sea floor and severed the buried cable. The site...

The map shows the ultimate challenge for any cable crossing the North Pole. The Bering Strait is the exit for any polar project trying to reach Asia. But the average depth is only 30 to 50 meters. As you learned in school, the Bering Strait was a land bridge during the last Ice Age lasting from 37,500 to 12,000 years ago. The lower the temperature, the more water vapor is deposited as snow and ice on land. Hence the oceans recede as temperatures fall.  The construction rule of thumb is to bury a submarine cable when the sea is a thousand meters or less deep. This means a polar cable must be buried for over two thousand kilometers as the map shows. The North Alaskan coastal Quintillion cable's burial depth varies between two and four meters with a maximum of 12 meters. Deep burial is intended to protect the cable from icebergs scraping the sea floor in shallow water. A dual cable design raises per meter cost because the protect path would traverse the more shallow Russian side of t...