Meta announces plans for epic new undersea data cable longer than the circumference of the Earth
Here in the bright, white technological heat of 2025, wireless seems to be the way for everything. So, it's somewhat sobering to be reminded of the prosaic physical reality that underpins modern comms, namely that really long cables carry as much as 98% of internet traffic. Enter Meta's mooted new internet cable, which is planned to be longer than the circumference of the Earth and up to four miles down into the sea.
If that seems immediately counter-intuitive, such cables obviously don't just go in a straight line across the surface of the planet. Indeed, in a blog post (via the Guardian) Meta says new cable will connect the US, India, South Africa, Brazil and more.
In really rough terms, the cable will enter the water on the US eastern seaboard, zip down to Brazil, before tacking off across the Atlantic Ocean and skirting across the lower tip of Africa. From there, it's off to Mumbai, India, then Queensland, Australia before the final, watery trek across the great Pacific to landfall in the US once again on the California coastline.
All in the new cable, which is codenamed Project Waterworth, is planned to be 31,000 miles or 50,000 kilometers. For the record, the Earth's circumference comes in at just under 25,000 miles.
Meta describes the new cable as, "a multi-billion dollar, multi-year investment to strengthen the scale and reliability of the world’s digital highways by opening three new oceanic corridors with the abundant, high speed connectivity needed to drive AI innovation around the world."
Perhaps not surprisingly, the cable will be technically innovative and be laid up to seven km or around four miles deep into the ocean.
"We continue to advance engineering design to maintain cable resilience, enabling us to build the longest 24 fiber pair cable project in the world and enhance overall speed of deployment. We are also deploying first-of-its-kind routing, maximizing the cable laid in deep water—at depths up to 7,000 meters—and using enhanced burial techniques in high-risk fault areas, such as shallow waters near the coast, to avoid damage from ship anchors and other hazards," Meta says.
Meta's PR has been a little patchy of late, what with CEO Mark Zuckerberg decreeing that fact checkers have been too biased in the past and ditching them in favour of "community notes" on Meta's facebook and Instagram platforms.
As we explained in January, Zuckerberg conceded Facebook and Instagram will "catch less bad stuff" as a consequence, but that reducing the number of improper takedowns is a greater priority.
Whatever you think about all that, this cable is a reminder that Meta is involved in at least some concrete, tangible projects that help keep the modern world going round, as opposed to merely being the world's biggest enabler of industrial scale s***posting and all of the downsides that come with social media.
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