Google and Facebook jointly announced that they would participate in the development of a new submarine cable system in 2024 to improve Internet connectivity in the Asia-Pacific region.
Facebook says, “A new infrastructure project, ‘Apricot,’ will link Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Guam, the Philippines and Indonesia to help meet the growing demand for broadband access and 5G wireless connections. , the company announced two trans-Pacific submarine cables: Bifrost and Echo”. They connect Singapore and the west coast of the United States. Google participated in the construction of the latter.
“2Africa is a continuation of our continued efforts to expand the infrastructure of the global network,” said Facebook. “We have collaborated with partners around the world to build a number of subsea fiber optic cables that lead the industry in terms of range, capacity, and flexibility.”
“Google, meanwhile, stated in a blog post that Echo and Apricot are two complementary undersea systems that will increase the flexibility of Google Cloud and other digital services of the company. Asia-Pacific region exceeds 190 megabits per second”
Currently, the two Silicon Valley giants are investing in building Internet infrastructure in areas where they believe it has the greatest potential for growth. Google also announced a $10 billion investment plan last year. The latter is expected to help India advance its digitization process over the next 5-7 years.
In addition to this, we learned that Facebook is building a huge undersea cable in Africa. Once completed, it will be able to bring the continent’s more than 1.3 billion inhabitants online.
As expected, projects of this magnitude need partnerships. Facebook partners with operators such as China Mobile, MTN of South Africa, Orange of France and Vodafone of Great Britain, as well as local network operators in the project, called 2Africa.
Also, Facebook is one of the pioneers and investors. Alcatel Submarine Networks, Nokia’s cable systems provider, is responsible for the work. The new submarine cable system will be 37,000 kilometers long. As Facebook claims, the cable will be “almost equal to the circumference of the Earth”
