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...

 Firmina is a spatial division multiplexing 16 fibre pair cable with initial design capacity of 320 Tbps. It is named after a Brazilian abolitionist, Maria Firmina dos Reis, who was Brazil's first novelist. Google is the owner. Telxius has acquired a fibre pair on the system as part of a complex deal that involves providing landing and back haul in Brazil. Right now Google is selling fibre pair and spectrum capacity to recoup its capex. Cirion Technologies has also purchased a pair. Stonepeak Investments, an  infrastructure investor, purchased Lumen's South American assets which operate today as Cirion. Firmina is substantially complete, but no RFS announcement so far.  Distinguishing Features: 1. It is possible to power the entire cable from either the US or Brazilian landing stations in case the other CLS experiences a black out.  2. Firmina is the third South American hyperscaler subsea cable. Google is the owner of all three.  3. Firmina is the first spatial...

 Like Anjana , Firmina is a content provider project. Google is the owner and bank for the 16 fibre pair (main trunk) spatial division multiplexing cable. The subsea network will connect the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina cable landing station to a Telxius CLS in Praia Grande (near Sao Paulo) and two other landings in Uruguay and Argentina. I think Google picked South Carolina because it represents a good latency compromise as some of the traffic is destined for Miami and some for Ashburn Equinix. It also improves the Google network's overall resiliency and its cloud infrastructure. I have noticed that Google has a tendency to run its fibre pairs at lower transmission speeds than Facebook. The design transmission rate for this system is 15 Tbps per pair whereas Facebook's Anjana is 20 terabits. So Firmina's design aggregate transmission rate day one is 240 Tbps. A quarter of a petabit.  Telxius has purchased a fibre pair on life-of-system IRU. I expect others will be looking ...