Firmina Cable, Google, & Cirion

Google's Firmina cable is a 16 fibre pair spatial division multiplexing cable that connects its Myrtle Beach CLS in South Carolina to Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina. Firmina was one of Brazil's first notable writers and novelists. The cable is on the verge of RFS with the wet segments done and the focus on securing back haul, equipment installation, and testing. Design capacity is 240 Tbps. The cable is open. This means each fibre pair or spectrum owner selects the Layer 1 technology vendor such as Ciena or Infinera. Hence Firmina is technology agnostic. This reflects the fact that subsea optical amplifiers are compatible with all DWDM manufacturers and hence there is no compelling reason for capacity owners to chose the same terminal equipment. The main reason for doing so was the consortium model where a single operating entity was created to manage the physical assets on behalf of the members. But this model lead to conservative, status quo decision making. Google and the other Digital Titans are mavericks intent on using what works best, not what keeps their partners happy or minimizes risk. 

Cirion purchased Lumen's South American assets a couple years back, but the Lumen cables are extremely old. In fact, SAC (South American Cable) only provides 10G waves. I know because I tried to get a 100G on the system. So Cirion purchased a Firmina fibre pair in order to stay competitive with the regional market leader, Telxisu. The Cirion press release is here: https://lnkd.in/dbFB6AWs. There is an annoying tendency among subsea cable service providers to purchase a fibre pair and then pretend it is a distinct cable. So Cirion's fibre pair is SAC-2, obviously intended to replace the aging SAC system. These branding efforts are an attempt to product differentiate a network segment which is fundamentally identical to the other fibre pairs on the system. Buyers are certainly not influenced so I don't why providers continue to do it. One significant Cirion advantage is the extensive Lumen back haul fibre it acquired. A success of a subsea cable service provider largely reflects its ability to deliver service to the desired carrier neutral data centre. The more end points POPs you have, the more you can sell. Buying local loops is generally a failed strategy. Wholesale market is price driven and the lowest price generally wins. 

Although the main trunk is 16 pairs, the Uruguay branch is 12 pairs, and Brazil's is 24. Branching units today can switch wavelengths from one fibre pair to another. This enables the cable's segments to have varying fibre pair counts to better reflect actual usage. It is important to note that Google owns Firmina. It has no real project partners. Google sells fibre pairs or spectrum on 25 year or life of system IRUs. So Google remains firmly in control unlike a traditional consortium where consensus rules.