Google Announces New Oman/Maldives/Christmas Island Cable Project

As most of you know, Google is building a subsea cable ring between Christmas Island and Australia. I speculated last week that Christmas Island might be where the planned South Africa to Australia Umoja cable would land. It turns out that the new cable, Dhivaru, will connect the new rising Middle East subsea cable hub of Oman to Christmas Island with a stop in the Maldives. The term 'dhivaru' refers to the rope used to control the sail on traditional Maldivian ships.

So the Google plan is quite clear. Google is creating an Indian Ocean subsea cable ring connecting Africa to Australia via Umoja and the Middle East to Australia via Dhivaru and the Bosun cable linking Christmas Island to Darwin.

I think that all these Google cables will be 16 or 24 fibre pairs pairs. Certainly not less than 16, but not exceeding 24, as traffic cannot justify it. At first glance there are losers and scorned parties. None of these cables land in India, which might reflect India's subsea cable regulatory moat. Or it may reflect undisclosed plans for Google cables linking Oman to India and India to Singapore. Another possible loser is the Subco Oman to Australia cable. This cable today has a route monopoly. It is the only one cable route linking the Middle East to Australia with the US military as an anchor tenant. Now it appears Google will get the US military business as Christmas Island is useful for surveillance of Chinese submarines and as a forward strike base. The Google map shows an arrow. I think this hints at a Christmas Island cable to Singapore via the Sundra strait.

The big winners are Oman, the Maldives, and Oreedoo. I have noted several times that Oreedoo, a mobile provider with operations in ten countries, was a rising subsea cable star. It broke Omantel's monopoly on landing cables in Oman by hosting 2Africa. It is the father of the FIG cable connecting 7 Middle Eastern countries. Oman is a rising subsea cable star, a rival hub to Dubai. The problem with Dubai is that the government enforces CLS cross connect charges that artificially raise connectivity costs into the city's carrier neutral data centers. It also limits local network competition. These backward policies guarantee Oman's rise as a telecommunications centre. In contrast, the 2Africa cross connect charges at the Oman CLS are $150 a month.

Maldives and Christmas Island have military value. I expect Google fibre pair sales to the Australian government, the US military, and other players. Moreover, as in the Pacific, these islands will provide power and full OEO regeneration (optical amplifiers accumulate noise that must be cleaned via FEC electronics). 

I believe that Google will complete its Indian Ocean network by linking Kenya to Oman, Oman to Mumbai, and the East Coast of India to Singapore. Google cannot ignore India long term. Furthermore, the Umoja cable includes terrestrial fibre from the South African CLS all the way to Kenya. A completer fibre ring is likely to be the outcome. 

Map of Google's New Fibre Optic Dhivarus Subsea Cable

Map of the Indian Ocean



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