New Subsea Cables RFS 2025: Echo

Transmission Technology: Spatial Division Multiplexing. 
Length: 16,026 kilometers. Almost 10,000 US miles.
Consortium Members: Google and Facebook.
Type of Consortium: Open cable model. 
Construction Status: Behind schedule due to permitting delays for Indonesian waters. Fifty-fifty control probably also slowed decision making. 
Number of Fibre Pairs: Main trunk has 12.
Estimated RFS: 1st or 2nd quarter 2025.
Day One Aggregate Throughput: 144 Tbps. 
Salient Features: First low latency, direct cable between Singapore and USA with no intermediate breakouts. One Indonesian branching unit. No telecom carrier consortium members. Amazon and Facebook land the cable themselves in Singapore and California. 

Google announced announced the 12 fibre pair SDM Echo project in early 2021 with a planned 2023 launch. However, permitting delays have slowed construction and the project is now expected to be RFS 2025. In addition, it is highly plausible that the 50-50 Facebook/Google control split slowed the project. The cable has a design capacity of 144 Tbps. A design capacity is simply a very conservative engineering estimate of the cable's aggregate throughput using the selected DWDM gear. Echo is likely to eventually reach 180 Tbps after its first upgrade. The project's main goal is a direct low latency path connecting Singapore, Asia's premier telecom hub, to the US. Singapore is the key distribution node for Southeast/American traffic. Indonesia will be connected to Echo via a branching unit. The mobile provider Axiata's Indonesian subsidiary will build a cable landing station for the project, operate it, and own the branching unit. 

Facebook and Google own the system 50-50 and have created two class of shares, equity and voting shares. This allows them to sell capacity or bring new consortium partners into the project without jeopardizing control. Even though junior partners like Axiata might get ownership shares, they do not have voting rights. Echo is very similar to Bifrost in design and intent. Echo provides a direct Singapore link to the US with the only branching unit consisting of six fibre pairs into Indonesia. It is also lands in Guam for power and also to connect to other subsea cables. The long length of the cable makes the Guam power crucial to its success and hence there are two Guam landings to minimize the chance of a total power outage. Google also plans to switch traffic at the Guam to the other Pacific cables that it is building like Tabua. 

This deal illustrates as well as any the fallen state of the telecom industry. The Digital Giants finance and design the vast majority of the world's high capacity subsea cables and then sell 25% to 33% of the Layer 1 capacity in the form of fibre pairs and spectrum ownership shares to the telecom carriers including the PTTs. Furthermore, except for the Indonesian landing, there are no third parties responsible for landing the cable. A Google subsidiary will land the cable in Singapore and a Meta subsidiary will do the same in California.-+

Telstra appears has purchased four fibre pairs, a pretty big investment. Ironically, the Telstra press release makes it sound like Echo is a Telstra project. Not a single mention in the article that Facebook and Google own 100% of the cable's voting and equity shares and designed and financed it.

There is no publicly available construction cost estimate of Echo, but it was undoubtedly high due to its length and because the route traverses shallow Indonesian waters. The latter necessitates deep, expensive trenching as well as a very meticulous subsea survey to avoid shipwrecks, exposed rock, areas of moving sediment (known as sand waves), sensitive ecosystems as well as dangerous shipping lanes and fishing grounds. The risk of damage is very high around Indonesia. Moreover, each repair results in irrecoverable optical loss that brings the cable ever closer to its operational demise. 

However, avoiding the South China Sea is a priority for new cables as the Chinese government has asserted control over the waters and permitting delays are long even for Chinese carrier led consortiums like SJC2 and ADC. Plus the US is concerned about surveillance of the cables and possible sabotage in case of a severe political crisis with China, most likely over Taiwan. Because the route is longer as a result, Guam was added for the opportunity to get more power for the system. However, the route is diverse to most Pacific subsea cable and that is a huge advantage in terms of resiliency. 


Echo Subsea Cable Map


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