Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta—parent company of Facebook and Instagram—is reportedly preparing to undertake a $10 billion project to construct an extensive fiber-optic subsea cable network solely for its own use. The intended network will extend beyond 40,000 kilometers (approximately 24,850 miles), connecting various global regions while avoiding areas prone to geopolitical conflict and sabotage incidents. These sensitive zones include the Red Sea, South China Sea, Egypt, Marseilles, the Straits of Malacca, and Singapore.
While Meta currently holds partial ownership in 16 existing cable networks, this ambitious new enterprise would be entirely under Meta’s control, allowing the company to prioritize traffic for its own platforms. This move aligns Meta with similar efforts made by Google, which has private ownership of several cable routes and has also invested in 33 additional networks.
Sunil Tagare, an expert on subsea cables, first highlighted Meta’s plan to establish this expansive network, tentatively named “W” due to its shape, in October. Tagare projected the initiative would necessitate a substantial investment of $10 billion, with the completion timeline estimated between five to ten years. As of now, the project is still in its initial phases.
The proposed undersea cable will reportedly traverse the east coast of the United States, traveling through regions such as India, South Africa, and Australia, before looping back to the U.S. west coast. The aim is to steer clear of areas where recent cable disruptions have occurred, which necessitate repair operations often conducted by a discreet global fleet of ships.
Recently, two undersea data cables connecting Finland and Sweden with Germany and Lithuania were believed to have been cut by a Chinese bulk commercial carrier that dragged its anchor for over 100 miles along the seabed.
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