Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

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.

The FCC's authority to regulate subsea cables is grounded in the 1921 Cable Landing License Act. The legislation's language is vague. Hence it is open to interpretation. In late 2025 the FCC issued a very long and tedious-to-read 214 page ruling that clarified its stance on a number of important issues. The document is attached to this post. 1. The FCC via the 1921 legislation is responsible for issuing licenses for cable landings on any American territory whether a State, territory (like Puerto Rico) or island. It regards any subsea cable that lands on US territory and traverses non-territorial waters as requiring an operating license. Any cable that remains within US territorial waters is exempt. See https://www.fcc.gov/cable-landing-license-act . Many carriers disagree with the current FCC interpretation. They argue that any cable connecting two points of United States territory is exempt. Not surprisingly, the FCC has rejected this view. It has pointed out t...

Major player is offering 100Gs on Bay of Bengal Gateway and IAX Cables with an unbeatable package discount. ***BBG and IAX are fully diverse end-to-end cables. A. IAX 100G waves from most carrier neutral Mumbai data centers to SG3. B. BBG 100G waves from Chennai to Singapore via a Malaysian landing protected terrestrial backhaul to Singapore. Two 100G waves, one 100G IAX (Mumbai/Singapore) and one 100G BBG (Chennai/Singapore) for $68.5K MRC total.