Petal will have twice the capacity of any other undersea cable yet built or planned.
The 7,000 km (4,350 mile) cable, called Petal, will connect the US and France. Meta is partnering with NEC and Sumitomo Electric Industries to build it, and working with French telecommunications company Orange to coordinate the landing of the cable on the French coast.
Petal will have more than double the capacity of today’s fastest transoceanic cables. Last November, AWS laid plans for a 320 Tbit/s cable between the US and Ireland, while a cable connecting Australia and the US, announced in January this year, will deliver 400 terabits per second.
The need for greater data connectivity has prompted a boom in subsea cable deployment, but their existence is making some US lawmakers rather twitchy, as they are fearful of the security implications. There have been calls for the big service providers to provide details of all the cables they have in place. The concerns are warranted given the number of incidents involving subsea cables.
