- We are announcing two vital new subsea cables to connect Singapore, Indonesia, and North America.
- These will be the first transpacific cables through a new diverse route crossing the Java Sea and will increase overall transpacific capacity by 70 percent.
We are committed to bringing more people online to a faster internet. As part of this effort, we’re proud to announce that we have partnered with leading regional and global partners to build two new subsea cables — Echo and Bifrost — that will provide vital new connections between the Asia-Pacific region and North America. While these projects are still subject to regulatory approvals, when completed, these cables will deliver much-needed internet capacity, redundancy, and reliability.
Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the need for reliable internet access. The internet has enabled people around the world to remain connected while apart, continue their education, take care of their health, and be productively employed. In the Asia-Pacific region in particular, the demand for 4G, 5G, and broadband access is rapidly increasing. Echo and Bifrost will support further growth for hundreds of millions of people and millions of businesses. We know that economies flourish when there is widely accessible internet for people and businesses.
Not only will Echo and Bifrost be the first transpacific cables through a new diverse route crossing the Java Sea, but they also will increase overall transpacific capacity by 70 percent. Connecting Singapore, Indonesia, and North America, these cable investments reflect our commitment to openness and our innovative partnership model, in which we work with a variety of leading Indonesian and global partners to ensure that everyone benefits from developing scale infrastructure and shared technology expertise. We are excited to work with partners such as Indonesian companies Telin and XL Axiata and Singapore-based Keppel on these projects.
Indonesia
These investments present an opportunity to enhance connectivity in the Central and Eastern Indonesian provinces, providing greater capacity and improved reliability for Indonesia’s international data information infrastructure. Echo and Bifrost complement the subsea cables serving Indonesia today, increasing service quality and supporting the country’s connectivity demands. This is all part of our continued effort to collaborate with partners in Indonesia to expand access to broadband internet and lower the cost of connectivity. For example, we partnered with Alita, an Indonesian telecom network provider, to deploy 3,000 kilometers of metro fiber in 20 cities in Bali, Java, Kalimantan, and Sulawesi. In addition, we are improving connectivity by expanding Wi-Fi with Express Wi-Fi.
Singapore
Building on our previously announced Singapore data center investments, Echo and Bifrost will provide important diverse subsea capacity to power Singapore’s digital growth and connectivity hub. We are excited to build on our other projects that connect to Singapore, including APG and SJC-2. Singapore is also home to many of our regional teams.
The Asia-Pacific region is very important to us. As part of our work to bring more people online to a faster internet, 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.
