Subsea Cable Class of 2029: AUG East

Asia United Group East (AUG East) cable's main trunk links Tokyo and Singapore with branches to South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, and possibly Indonesia (the consortium has stated the cable will land in Indonesia, but the map below shows Indonesia is off-net). Few project details are available. Fibre pair count is unknown, but it will be at least 16 and likely as much as 24 fibre pairs given the region's incredible Layer 3 traffic growth. Consortium members include Microsoft, Amazon, Singtel, the Japanese long haul carrier ARTERIA, Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan PTT), DREAMLINE (Korean competitive carrier), GLOBE Telecom, and Unified National Networks (Brunei).

Like Candle, it avoids the South China Sea by hugging its perimeter in order to avoid Chinese permitting (China claims the South China Sea as territorial waters and requires Chinese government permits for all subsea cables laid in it) and put distance between itself and the large number of cables packed together like sardines in South China Sea. Obviously, staying close to the Philippines means deeper burial and higher construction costs. It also raises the likelihood of cable outages since most happen in shallow coastal waters where ships and fishing are constant threats. Geopolitics today is shaping intra-Asian routes. 

Map of the Fibre Optic AUG East Subsea Cable


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The British Empire's Resilient Subsea Telegraph Network

Image
The British empire had largely completed its Red Line cable network by 1902. This network allowed news and messages to be delivered in a few minutes or several hours at most depending on the message queue's length. It spanned the globe and formed a network ring so traffic could be routed in the opposite direction in case of disruption. It was, as Dr. Michael Delaunay has argued, a highly resilient network. Besides the ring configuration, the network relied on multiple cables between any pair of given end points to ensure uptime. The British military believed it would be impossible for an enemy to cut enough cables on any route to sever all communications between any given pair of end points. The Committee of Imperial Defense concluded that 57 cables must be shut down to isolate the British Isles from the Red Line network. The figure was 15 for Canada and 7 for South Africa. The Empire was self sufficient in terms of manufacturing the components for a subsea telegraph cable and re...
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

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