Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

Google's Firmina cable is a 16 fibre pair spatial division multiplexing cable that connects its Myrtle Beach CLS in South Carolina to Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina. Firmina was one of Brazil's first notable writers and novelists. The cable is on the verge of RFS with the wet segments done and the focus on securing back haul, equipment installation, and testing. Design capacity is 240 Tbps. The cable is open. This means each fibre pair or spectrum owner selects the Layer 1 technology vendor such as Ciena or Infinera. Hence Firmina is technology agnostic. This reflects the fact that subsea optical amplifiers are compatible with all DWDM manufacturers and hence there is no compelling reason for capacity owners to chose the same terminal equipment. The main reason for doing so was the consortium model where a single operating entity was created to manage the physical assets on behalf of the members. But this model lead to conservative, status quo decision making. Google and the ot

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

Google has been a path breaker in the submarine cable world. It financed the first spatial division multiplexing cable across the Atlantic, namely the 12 fibre pair Dunant system . It is also the owner of the new 16 pair  Topaz system which directly links Canada to Asia and bypasses the US. Not to mention the billion dollars Google is spending to crisscross the Pacific with a web of new cables connecting Japan, Guam, Hawaii, Chile, Australia, Fiji, French Polynesia, and other island chains. Umoja is no less surprising than its predecessors. It has two key components. A new terrestrial fibre highway in partnership with Liquid Technologies that will head Northwest from Kenya's data centres to Uganda and then South to traverse and connect Rwanda, the Democratic Congo Republic, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and finally, South Africa.  The bane of sub-Saharan Africa has been the lack of domestic long haul fibre connecting the landlocked countries to each other and to the coasts where the subsea