Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

The Echo cable is a 12 fibre network directly linking Singapore to California with with a Guam branching unit. Bifrost, the other cable connecting Singapore and the US, also lands in Bifrost. I believe each cable effectively serves as backup for the other because traffic can be rerouted at Guam. Both cables are only 12 fibre pairs due to the great distances involved. Its design capacity is 260 Tbps. A key feature of both Bifrost and Echo is they bypass the South China Sea even though it is part of the shortest path between Singapore and the US West Coast. Hence Chinese permits are avoided, resiliency is improved since most Intra-Asian traffic traverses the South China Sea, and the cable is more protected from Chinese tapping or attack. However, it does come as a price. The cable must be buried quite deep through the shallow Indonesian waters to minimize fishing boat or anchor damage. And Indonesia is quite slow to issue permits for new subsea cables. So two cables likely...

A good Tech Capital article on the new wave of American Tech Giant cables in Asia:  https://thetechcapital.com/subsea-shake-up-how-new-cables-are-wiring-southeast-asias-ai-era/. My list of the most important new cables: 1. Apricot is a 12 fibre pair Southeast Asian cable with throughput of 290 Terabits. It bypasses China, Hong Kong, and the South China Sea in a clear signal to the Chinese government to get lost. Google and META are consortium members. 2. Echo is a 12 fibre pair Pacific cable directly linking Singapore to the United States. It has 144 Tbps throughput. Google and Facebook are equal partners in the project. The lower throughput reflects the 20,000 kilometer length of the cable. Same holds true for Bifrost. 3. Bifrost is the sister cable linking Singapore to the US. Its digital horse power is 180 Tbps. 4. Waterworth is a 480 Tbps behemoth with 24 fibre pairs. We still don't know the exact landing points in Asia. It will land on both the West and East coasts ...

Type of Cable System: Spatial Division Multiplexing.  Consortium Members: Amazon, Facebook, Keppel, and Telin. Construction Status: Behind schedule due to permitting delays for Indonesian waters.  Number of Fibre Pairs: Main trunk has 12. Some branches have 6.  Estimated RFS: 1st or 2nd quarter 2025. Day One Aggregate Throughput: 125 Tbps.  Salient Features: First low latency, three digit terabit cable between Singapore and USA.  Bifrost is the name of the burning rainbow bridge that connects Earth to the Realm of the Gods in Norse mythology. This new 12 fibre pair system is a wide lane digital bridge between Southeast Asia and North America (lands in the US and Mexico). It is the first direct single subsea cable solution connecting Singapore, Indonesia, and Philippines to North America that does not touch China or Hong Kong. The key consortium members include Facebook, Telin, Keppel (a new subsea player providing the Singapore landing), and Amazon. Singtel has ...