Advancing connectivity between the Asia-Pacific and North America regions, Facebook is set to build two new subsea cables — Echo and Bifrost — with leading regional and global partners.
These subsea cables will connect Singapore, Indonesia, and North America, making it the first transpacific cables through a new diverse route crossing the Java Sea. Moreover, it will increase the overall transpacific capacity by 70 percent and deliver increased internet capacity as well as network redundancy and reliability.
The demand for 4G, 5G, and broadband access is rapidly increasing within the Asia-Pacific region. Thus, Echo and Bifrost will support further growth by ensuring a widely accessible internet for people and businesses.
According to Facebook Vice President of Network Investments, Kevin Salvadori, Echo is being built in partnership with Alphabet’s Google and Indonesian telecommunications’ company XL Axiata while Bifrost is being done in collaboration with Telin, a subsidiary of Indonesia’s Telkom, and Singaporean conglomerate Keppel. These two are set to be completed between 2023-2024.
“These new projects add to our foundational regional investments in infrastructure and partnerships to improve connectivity to help close the digital divide and strengthen economies,” the American technology conglomerate declared on its statement.
As of the moment, the two new ventures are still subject to regulatory approvals.