Apricot Cable: A Geopolitical Statement

The 12 fibre pair spatial division multiplexing cable is a sign of our times. It links together Japan, Taiwan, Guam, Philippines, Singapore, and Indonesia, but excludes Hong Kong and China on security grounds. Consistent with these geopolitical concerns, the cable's main trunk bypasses the South China Sea where China is demanding permit applications (which often exceed a year to get approved), can easily tap cables, and has created artificial military island bases. In a military conflict the fifteen cables traversing the the South China Sea would be at risk. Instead, Apricot takes a long route via Indonesian waters in order to head North along the Philippines' East Coast. The cable's design reflects the potential threat that an aggressive China in conflict with the Philippines and Taiwan poses to Southeast Asian telecommunications. 

Although latency is much higher, Apricot offers attractive physical diversity because it avoids the cable congested South China Sea, includes a new Japanese cable landing station, new East coast landings in Taiwan and the Philippines as well as two new Philippine cable landing stations. Network resiliency is a big challenge in Southeast Asia. Subsea cables are packed together like sardines in a can in narrow sea lanes heavily used for shipping and fishing (most cable outages are due to fishing and shipping vessels dragging their anchors). Many cables share the same landing station. For example, eight major subsea networks land at Japan's Maruyama CLS. Consequently, many regional cables experience chronic outages like APG, down 12 of the last 24 months. These factors make Apricot's physical diversity highly attractive. Internet backbones can use the shorter South China Sea cables as primary routes with Apricot as a resilient backup. Another probable source of demand will be military communications because concerns about Chinese tapping or sabotage are far less given the cable's design. Indeed, it is plausible that the US military takes capacity on the segments linking Guam to Taiwan and the Philippines. Guam is the single most important US Western Pacific military base with 28 naval commands located there. It would be key to repelling a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Moreoever, there are 9 US military bases in the Philippines. Guam is a major Internet switching hub so traffic back hauled from Southeast Asian countries can ride undersea links to Japan, US, and Australia. 

Consortium members include Google, Facebook, NTT, and  the Taiwanese and Philippino PTTs. Apricot was a very expensive build because it traverses very shallow Indonesian waters requiring deep burial to protect it from fishing, vandalism, and anchor dragging. A project like this probably cost at least $300 million. Interestingly enough, several stub branching units have been dropped in the water for Perth, three Indonesian sites, and the island of Palau.