Sources from the company say that Meta plans to build a new large fiber optic submarine cable that will stretch worldwide. It will have a length of about 40,000 kilometers and may cost more than $10 billion in investments. Importantly, Meta will be this submarine cable’s sole owner and user, whose route will avoid danger zones.
Sources from the company say that Meta plans to build a new large fiber optic submarine cable that will stretch worldwide. It will have a length of about 40,000 kilometers and may cost more than $10 billion in investments. Importantly, Meta will be this submarine cable’s sole owner and user, whose route will avoid danger zones.
This is reported by TechCrunch, which reminds us that Meta is the second-largest driver of Internet use worldwide. Its resources and billions of users account for 10% of all fixed and 22% of mobile traffic.
Sunil Tagare, an expert on submarine cables, noted that the plan is to start with a budget of $2 billion, but as the project develops, the amount is likely to increase to more than $10 billion.
Sources close to Meta confirmed the existence of the project but said it was still in its early stages. The plans are already in place, but the physical assets aren’t ready yet, and they declined to discuss the budget. Meta is expected to speak more publicly in early 2025, when it will confirm plans for the cable, including the planned route, capacity, and some considerations for its construction.
If the strategy goes ahead, it will be years before it is fully operational, given that the limited number of companies like SubCom that can build the infrastructure already have big customers like Google that have reserved their services.
«The offer of cable vessels is very limited. They are expensive and booked several years in advance. Finding spare resources to do this soon will not be easy,» said Ranulph Scarborough, an analyst of the submarine cable industry.
Once construction is complete, the cable will give Meta a dedicated data cable around the world. The cable’s planned route, the sources said, would currently run from the US East Coast to India via South Africa and then to the US West Coast from India via Australia, forming a 'W' shape around the globe.
Meta is not new to this field. According to telecommunications analysts Telegeography, Meta co-owns 16 existing networks, including the recently laid 2Africa cable, which circles the continent. However, this new cable will be the first to be fully owned by Meta itself.
First, it will put Meta in the same category as Google, which is involved in laying 33 different routes, including several regional ones, in which it is the sole owner. Other major technology companies that either co-own or are buyers of submarine cable capacity include Amazon and Microsoft (neither of which fully owns either route).
Sole ownership of the route and cable will give Meta first priority to support traffic at its facilities. Another reason is that technology companies—rather than telcos, the traditional builders and owners of those cables—want more direct ownership of the routes needed to deliver content, advertising, and more to users around the world.
«They make money by presenting their products to end users, and they’ll do whatever it takes to provide quality customer service, whether it’s delivering videos or other information. Frankly, who is going to rely on traditional telecom companies anymore? Technology companies are now independent. They realized that they have to build everything themselves», — says the Scarborough analyst.
Geopolitics also plays an important role. Several times in recent years, submarine cables have been laid due to tensions in the regions. Iranian-backed Houthi fighters are chasing boats and damaging cables in the Red Sea (such as the one connecting Europe to India) in the process. This month (November 2024), Russia was suspected of cutting an underwater cable in the Baltic Sea. Just this week, another cable sank in European waters, and a Chinese vessel is now being blamed for it.
The route envisioned by Meta is designed to help the company «avoid areas of geopolitical tension.» It will bypass the Red Sea, South China Sea, Egypt, Marseille, Malacca, and Singapore Straits — «all of which are now major bottlenecks».
