Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

The agency (SUPO) released their 2026 National Review a few days ago: https://supo.fi/en/growing-tensions-in-the-baltic-sea . It stated that Russia has not engaged in sabotage against Finland. The agency did not qualify that statement in any respect. So in their view there is no evidence that sabotage is responsible for outages of power or fibre optic cables landing in Finland. The majority of the Baltic Sea cable outages have involved Finland. 1. The agency notes that Russia sabotaging cables would not be in its self-interest as it might jeopardize the Baltic Sea freedom of navigation crucial to its war effort. "According to the SUPO’s assessment, Russia is making every effort to safeguard its opportunities to practise free shipping. The country will not take any voluntary risks that could deteriorate its freedom of navigation. To Russia, the Baltic Sea is also an undersea channel to the West: most of the network traffic from Russia to the West is transmitted via c...

A point: San Jose Equinix. Z point: Ashburn Equinix. Service: 2x 100G Waves. Routing: Fully Diverse. Term: 3 Years. Total MRC: $5,500

A point: 1 Wilshire or Coresite 2. Z point: Telehouse London.  Service: Layer 1.  Bandwidth: 10G.  Term: 2 Years.  Customer handles cross connects.  Subsea Cable: No outages in last six years.  UK Backhaul: Diverse to cables landing at Bude.   Special Deal: Two fully diverse 10Gs between these end points for $3500 total per month on a 1 year term.

 "For decades, the Red Sea was the highway of the global internet. Thousands of kilometres of subsea cables snaked beneath its waters, carrying the vast majority of digital traffic between Asia and Europe. It was cheap, it was direct, and it worked. Then the Houthis started firing. Since late 2023, two major outages have each severed four subsea cables at once, paralysing connectivity across one of the globe’s most vital digital arteries. While the physical damage to infrastructure was significant, it proved far less disruptive than the agonising delays in repairs. With the Red Sea corridor choked by conflict and uncertainty, the world’s reliance on these fragile links has been thrown into sharp relief, exposing just how vulnerable global internet traffic remains in the face of geopolitical turmoil. “The outages in themselves are not the problem,” says Roderick Beck, an independent subsea cable consultant with deep relationships across the hyperscaler and wholesa...

In a conversation I had today with the editor of Capacity Media, I suggested the top challenge for the global subsea cable industry over the next five years is how to thread intercontinental traffic through the Middle East to Europe, India, and Asia. Trump's attack on Iran has shut down the Persian Gulf, which many subsea cable consortiums viewed as their best hope for a Red Sea bypass route. If wet segment outages happened, there would be no way to repair them today, just like the Red Sea off Yemen. Thank you, Donald.  In fact, SWM6 goes up the Persian Gulf and lands at Bahrain. It is linked to fibre along a highway from Bahrain to the cable landing station in Saudi's Arabia's resort city of Jeddah. So the SMW6 bypass uses the Persian Gulf up to Bahrain, traverses the Desert, and then rides the Red Sea to an Egyptian CLS. In addition, persistent rumors suggest that Blue-Raman will traverse Kuwait as part of a terrestrial route to reach the Red Sea. I don...

Mumbai/Singapore; IAX Cable; 100G Wave; $35K MRC; 3 Years. Secaucus Equinix/Ashburn Equinix; 100G Wave; Diverse to Usual Suspects; $1,350 MRC; 5 Years. Ghana/Nigeria; 2Africa Cable; 100G Wave; $20.5 MRC; 3 Years. LA Coresite/Slough Equinix; Route protected 10G; $3250 MRC; 1 Year. Dallas Equinix/Ashburn Equinix; 100G; $2200 MRC; 3 Years. Singapore/California; 10G; SEA-US; $7500 MRC; 2 Years.  Singapore/Tokyo; 100G; ADC; $15K MRC; 3 Years.  Singapore/Marseille; 100G; Peace; Non-Chinese carrier & equipment; $19.5K MRC; 3 Years.  Tallinn/Amsterdam; 100G; $2500 MRC; 3 Years.  Sofia/Istanbul; 100G; Highly stable and diverse paths; $6,500 MRC; 3 Years.