Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

Transmission Technology: Spatial Division Multiplexing.  Length: 16,026 kilometers. Almost 10,000 US miles. Consortium Members: Google and Facebook. Type of Consortium: Open cable model.  Construction Status: Behind schedule due to permitting delays for Indonesian waters. Fifty-fifty control probably also slowed decision making.  Number of Fibre Pairs: Main trunk has 12. Estimated RFS: 1st or 2nd quarter 2025. Day One Aggregate Throughput: 144 Tbps.  Salient Features: First low latency, direct cable between Singapore and USA with no intermediate breakouts. One Indonesian branching unit. No telecom carrier consortium members. Amazon and Facebook land the cable themselves in Singapore and California.  Google announced  announced the 12 fibre pair SDM Echo project in early 2021 with a planned 2023 launch. However, permitting delays have slowed construction and the project is now expected to be RFS 2025. In addition, it is highly plausible that the 50-50 Facebook/Google control split sl

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 some lit capacity on the