Pacific Cable Outage Report: RNAL Segments Down

***Hong Kong/Tokyo, Tokyo/Taipei, and Hong Kong/Taipei.

***Outages started 10:14 GMT, July 6th, 2025.

***Until a cable ship can investigate, no idea of the cause.

***I caution the paranoids among you to refrain from speculation. Hong Kong is part of China so the sabotage theory is most likely bogus.

*** The graph shows that the common factor among these segments is Taipei.

Map of RNAL Fibre Optic Subsea Cable


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Here We Go Again: Several Major Cables Down Off Yemen

Image
Three industry insiders have confirmed the 'epicenter' of the outages is in Yemen coastal waters at a depth of only one 100 meters. This strongly suggests fishing or more likely an anchor is responsible. Multiple sources have told me that neither Egyptian or Saudi Internet services has been degraded, but the Persian Gulf has been hit hard as well as Pakistan. This is consistent with the epicenter being off Yemen. It is also consistent with the cables reported down below. Four Cables Definitely Down: 1. EIG. 2. SWM4. 3. IMEWE. 4. Falcon Lower left map is SMW4. Center is EIG. Far right is IMEWE. Total capacity of these four cables is approximately 44 Tbps. Pakistan is heavily dependent on SWM4, EIG, and IMEWE. Scattered reports initially suggest AAE1 may also be down. But it is not.
Read more

Update on META's Waterworth Project

Image
META has started selecting landing sites. As the map below shows, the subsea cable's routing is unique, a record breaking 50,000 kilometers in length, and it will form a ring around the world. A ring allows Facebook to reroute traffic in the opposite direction if there is a fault. Waterworth is a 24 fibre pair system. That puts at the top of the fiber pair count for spatial division multiplexing systems. So figure a design transmission rate of a half petabit per second.  Although crazy news outlets have reported it will cost $10 billion, that figure is absurd. The project can easily be done for $2 billion or less even with extensive terrestrial trenching to create new and unique fibre routes. Will the project use new technologies like multicore fibre or multiband spectrum? Doubtful. The price tag dictates the META subsea cable design team will use standard proven technology. No one wants to tell their boss they just wasted $1.5 billion dollars. It is not good for your career. 😃 Wa...
Read more

The Short Life Expectancy of Starlink's LEO Satellites

Image
According to FCC filings Starlink shut down almost 500 Starlink satellites during the first half of 2025. The company had them reenter the atmosphere where they burned up. What is striking is that these satellites were all less than 5 years old. The general consensus is that LEOs have a life expectancy ranging from 5 to 8 years. Shorter than expected life spans for the satellites will hit Starlink's income statement hard by increasing network depreciation and replacement needs. However, Starlink has managed to lower its LEO's manufacturing costs down to $500K versus initial figures around $1 million. So these production economies of scale might offset some of the higher than expected depreciation. However, there are also rocket launch costs as well. It costs Starlink about $3 million to put a satellite into orbit. The Falcon 9 costs $67 million per flight and delivers 23 LEOs into low Earth orbit. As a private company Starlink financials are a bit of mystery. The company press ...
Read more