Mar 30, 2021 12:00:00

Facebook and Google are planning the world's first submarine cable connecting Southeast Asia and North America

High-speed internet access is available in Japan, but there are still many places in the world that do not have access to the internet, and Google and Facebook have been working to bring the internet to such places for years. Facebook announced the world's largest submarine cable laying plan in 2020,

but on March 28, 2021, announced a new plan to build a submarine cable connecting Singapore, Indonesia and North America in collaboration with Google. ..

Echo and Bifrost cables: Advancing connectivity --Facebook Engineering
https://engineering.fb.com/2021/03/28/connectivity/echo-bifrost/

Introducing the Echo subsea cable | Google Cloud Blog
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/introducing-the-echo-subsea-cable

Facebook, Google plan new undersea cables to connect Southeast Asia and America | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-internet-southeastasia-idUSKBN2BL0CH

There are two newly constructed submarine cables, 'Echo' and 'Bifrost'. Echo is being built in partnership with Google's parent company Alphabet and Indonesian telecommunications company XL Axiata and is expected to be completed by 2023. Bifrost is being built in partnership with Indonesian and Singaporean companies and is scheduled to be completed by 2024. This time, Facebook has announced an investment in these two cables.

'The two routes, Echo and Bifrost, will be new routes across the Java Sea, increasing overall trans-Pacific underwater capacity by 70%,' said Kevin Salvator of Facebook. On the other hand, it has not been revealed how much Facebook's investment will be.

In Indonesia, 73% of 270 million people can connect to the Internet, but most of them are connected by mobile data, and less than 10% are connected to broadband. It is believed that the new submarine cable laying will allow people who were previously unable to connect to the Internet to connect.

In the past, Google and Facebook had planned to build a Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) that directly connects North America and China, but the plan was suspended due to worsening US-China relations. It is said that Echo and Bifrost will need to be approved by the regulatory authorities in the future, but it is believed that once the approval is obtained and the project is completed, it will be possible to provide a large internet capacity and stable connection.