Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

Hollow core enjoys 33% lower latency than standard solid core single mode fibre. Moreover, it offers at least 50% more bandwidth because a much wider spectrum band can be used. In contrast, solid glass is hobbled by high attenuation outside the C and L bands. A final advantage is hollow core exhibits little chromatic dispersion. Single mode fibre is bedeviled by polar mode and chromatic dispersion. In each case, the speed of light through glass varies sufficiently by wavelength to blur the signal by the time it reaches the far end. The coherent optics revolution was largely about using digital signal processing to unscramble the signal or more precisely to use physics to work backwards and infer the original, pristine signal. But hollow core technology until now has been stymied by very high optical attenuation. This simply means the light fades rapidly as it passes through the hollow core. The light is absorbed rapidly by the surrounding glass border due to the absence of refraction. ...

Singtel is leading a consortium of Asian carriers and American tech giants that will finance a new intra-asian cable connecting Japan, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea. Details are sparse. Press releases say it will be a high fibre count network. My guess is at least 12 pairs and as much as 24. Two core fibre is also a possibility given NEC's participation. What is striking is that SJC2 and ADC just went in service with Apricot also expected to be RFS this year, yet here is another cable with a similar Southeast Asian footprint under development. This suggests to me that traffic is growing faster than anticipated with the carriers under pressure to catch up to the rapidly growing market. The other notable feature is the absence of any landings in Hong Kong or mainland China. Since China has emerged as the regional bully, the cable's name is probably not a coincidence. Consortium members include Singtel, Amazon, Micro...

The Tech Giant has announced it will spend $700 million building data centers in Poland to provide cloud and AI services. This investment is in addition to the existing three Microsoft data centers in the Warsaw cloud region. Price tag for those three data centers was a billion dollars. Poland and fellow former Iron Curtain countries comprise the EU's poorest region.  Microsoft's deal appears to be motivated in large part by strong regional demand for cybersecurity services given those pesky Russian hackers many of whom work under contract for Russia's Federal Security Agency.  Russian cyber attacks  against Eastern European states are common. In particular, the Baltic states have been hard hit. Putin has openly expressed the desire to create a greater Russia consisting of Russian speaking peoples and the Baltics have significant Russian minorities.  I am not an expert, but I am not aware of any existing Eastern European hyperscaler facilities outside of Microsoft's ...

Microsoft has filed an application to do a geophysical survey for a new subsea fibre optic cable connecting Ireland to the UK. The Irish Maritime authority has blessed the application. Tuskar is the name of an Irish lighthouse located on a rock in the Irish Sea. It was the first Irish facility to be powered by electricity. The cable's tentative design is to land at Kilmore Quay on the Irish side with the British landing at Newgale in Wales. Again, I expect a 96 fibre pair unrepeated cable system.  Some of my readers have expressed skepticism that Microsoft would be building its own cable when there have been several carrier builds across the Irish Sea in the last five years. EUNetwork's Rockabill unrepeatered cable has 96 fibre pairs; it went live in 2019. Aquacomms CeltixConnect-2 cable is an unrepeatered system that went live March 2022. And that's not at all. Zayo has 24 fibre pairs on the power cable Interconnector East-West.  But here's the thing. I don't think...

Microsoft has applied for several maritime usage licenses to do ship geophysical surveys of proposed routes for new subsea cables connecting Ireland to the UK. Its SOBR2 cable will connect Ireland to Wales as opposed to the usual Cornwall landings. It will apparently land at Malahide Beach or Portmarnock on the Irish side. Another possibility is a branch with a landing at both Malahide and Portmarnock. Details are very sparse on the cable itself. My educated guess would be a 96 pair unrepeatered cable because it minimizes capex while maximizing bandwidth punch with such systems easily pushing a couple petabits per second. The site survey will focus on the top three meters of the sea floor. It will take samples to ascertain the texture and composition of material with an eye towards a deep burial of the cable itself if possible. The samples will help determine not only burial depth but also how well armoured the cable will be. The Irish Sea is notorious for fibre cuts due to trawler fis...

Technology: Standard 100G wave coherent optics. Shorter repeater spacings to maximize per fibre pair throughput.  Fibre Pairs: 8.  Founding Fathers: Facebook and Microsoft Consortium Members: Facebook, Microsoft, and Telxius.  RFS: May, 2018.  Route: Direct Ashburn Equinix to Spain.  Landings: Virginia Beach, VA. Bilbao, Spain.  Notable Features: First cable to directly link Ashburn Equinix to Europe. Also first cable to adopt the open cable system model where each consortium member selects their own submarine line termination gear and owns either fibre pairs or spectrum.  Potential Throughput: 224 Tbps.  Marea is the first cable to give the cold shoulder to New York City and the UK. It directly links Ashburn Equinix via a Virginia Beach landing to Continental Europe with a Spanish landing. The cable completely bypasses the UK and the Northeastern US. This reflected Ashburn Equinix' rising importance and the desire of network planners  to avo...