After being rumored to be in the early stages of the mission final yr, Meta confirmed today that it is constructing “Mission Waterworth,” an over 50,000 km subsea cable that can join 5 continents. The corporate has partnered on different cable tasks beforehand, however this might be the primary piece of subsea infrastructure it owns outright.
The mission touches land within the US, Brazil, India, and South Africa, and is seemingly breaking new floor technically, too. Meta claims Waterworth is the longest 24 fiber pair cable mission on the earth, and the corporate is utilizing “first-of-its-kind routing” to position the cables as deep as potential, “at depths of as much as 7,000 meters.” If cables aren’t deep sufficient, undersea hazards, like boats dropping and dragging their anchors, could cause everlasting injury, disrupting service.
Meta’s announcement does not go into element about how the cable will likely be used, past noting that subsea cables allow “digital communication, video experiences, on-line transactions and extra,” and that high-speed connectivity is a necessity for “AI innovation.” On their very own, Meta providers and platforms are said to account for about 10 % of world mounted web utilization and 22 % of cellular site visitors, so on the very least the corporate’s current companies stand to profit from a secure connection.
A United States-India joint statement launched after Prime Minister Modi visited the US “welcomed” the announcement. It additionally notes that India itends to assist to finance, preserve and restore undersea cables within the Indian Ocean. A Meta spokesperson clarified that India shouldn’t be concerned within the financing of Mission Waterworth.
Replace, February 14, 5:30PM ET: This text was modified after publish to make clear that India shouldn’t be concerned financially with Mission Waterworth. We remorse the error.
This text initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-confirms-its-building-its-own-subsea-cable-190153227.html?src=rss
About The Author
