{"id":240863,"date":"2025-02-17T16:15:06","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T16:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/17\/meta-plans-globe-spanning-sub-sea-internet-cable\/"},"modified":"2025-02-17T16:15:06","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T16:15:06","slug":"meta-plans-globe-spanning-sub-sea-internet-cable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/17\/meta-plans-globe-spanning-sub-sea-internet-cable\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta plans globe-spanning sub-sea internet cable"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Meta<\/div>


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Meta has announced plans to build a 50,000km (31,000 mile) subsea cable across the world. <\/p>\n

The tech giant said Project Waterworth – connecting the US, India, South Africa, Brazil and other regions – will be the world’s longest underwater cable project when completed.<\/p>\n

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has sought to extend its presence in technology beyond social media, including in artificial intelligence (AI) and the infrastructure that supports it.<\/p>\n

It said its new cable project would provide “industry-leading connectivity” to five major continents and help support its AI projects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“This project will enable greater economic co-operation, facilitate digital inclusion, and open opportunities for technological development in these regions,” Meta said in a blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The cable would be the longest to date that uses a 24 fibre-pair system, giving it a higher capacity, according to the firm.<\/p>\n

Subsea cables have become increasingly important as they provide the means to power a variety of digital services and transfer data worldwide at speed.<\/p>\n

One regularly-cited statistic suggests more than 95% of the world’s internet traffic is transferred through undersea cables.<\/p>\n

Telecommunications market research firm TeleGeography says there are currently more than 600 publicly-known subsea cable systems worldwide.<\/p>\n

This includes the 2Africa cable, backed by Meta and mobile network operators such as Orange, Vodafone and China Mobile, which links three continents and spans 45,000km.<\/p>\n

And the tech firms that serve as major providers of web services have invested huge sums in cable infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Google said in 2024 it would build the first subsea cable connecting Africa and Australia, and announced<\/a> a $1bn investment to boost connectivity to Japan with two new subsea cables in the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

Telecoms and technology analyst Paolo Pescatore told the BBC that Meta “has shown a strong desire to own more of the connectivity slice”. <\/p>\n

“This is a further demonstration as it seeks to leapfrog rivals in providing users with an unique experience by tightly integrating hardware, software, platform and its growing aspirations in connectivity,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Ultimately these moves, while welcome from an investment perspective, will raise further eyebrows among regulators and other key stakeholders given increasing dominance of big tech.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The rising importance of subsea cables has increased concerns over their vulnerability to attacks or accidents.<\/p>\n

Following a spate of severed cables, experts have said undersea communications infrastructure is a growing arena for geopolitical tensions and conflict.<\/p>\n

Nato launched a mission in January to increase surveillance of ships in the Baltic Sea after damage to critical undersea cables last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A UK parliamentary committee recently issued<\/a> a call for evidence about the UK’s resilience in the face of potential disruption. <\/p>\n

This said pointed to growing concern over “Russian and Chinese capabilities to hold undersea infrastructure at risk – particularly during periods of heightened tension or conflict”.<\/p>\n

Meta said in its blog post announcing Project Waterworth it would lay its cable system up to 7,000 meters deep and “use enhanced burial techniques in high-risk fault areas, such as shallow waters near the coast, to avoid damage from ship anchors and other hazards”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Meta has announced plans to build a 50,000km (31,000 mile) subsea cable across the world. The tech giant said Project Waterworth – connecting the US, India, South Africa, Brazil and other regions – will be the world’s longest underwater cable project when completed. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has sought to extend its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9fc\/live\/6a169420-ed3c-11ef-aa6d-b97ed0f17260.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[604],"tags":[30426,187463,1426,2021,1925,187464],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240863"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240865,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240863\/revisions\/240865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}