TECH giant Meta has announced plans to build the longest sea cable in the world – which will span longer than the circumference of the planet and cost $10billion.
The Facebook owner said that Project Waterworth will involve a 50,000km subsea mega cable connecting the US, India, South Africa and Brazil.
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Meta, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, will provide “industry-leading connectivity” to five major continents as well as help its artificial intelligence projects.
The tech titan, headed by Mark Zuckerburg, said in a blog post: “Project Waterworth will bring industry-leading connectivity to the US, India, Brazil, South Africa, and other key regions.
“This project will enable greater economic cooperation, facilitate digital inclusion, and open opportunities for technological development in these regions.
“For example, in India, where we’ve already seen significant growth and investment in digital infrastructure, Waterworth will help accelerate this progress and support the country’s ambitious plans for its digital economy,” they claimed.
Meta’s new 31,000-mile cable will also have 24 fibre pairs to give it higher capacity, meaning faster speed internet.
The announcement comes despite growing concerns about foreign cyber attacks.
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In the UK, we have about 60 undersea cables which carry 99% of data connecting to the outside world.
Over 95 per cent of the world’s internet traffic is transferred though undersea cables and there are currently at least 600 sub-sea cable systems known to the public worldwide.
Military alliance NATO launched a mission in January this year to increase surveillance of ships in the Baltic Sea after damage to cables last year amidst Russia’s War in Ukraine.
A UK parliamentary committee has also issued a call for evidence about the UK’s resilience in the face of disruption, pointing to particular concern over “Russian and Chinese capabilities to hold undersea infrastructure at risk”.
In 2018 during his first term, President Donald Trump placed sanctions on a Russian company for allegedly providing “underwater capabilities” to Moscow with the aim of monitoring the underwater network.
DANGERS OF UNDERSEA CABLES
Modern cables can transmit 100 terabits of data per second – enough for millions of simultaneous calls.
Global internet traffic could slow dramatically if multiple major cables were damaged simultaneously.
Ship anchors remain the most common cause of cable damage, accounting for around 70% of breaks.
It can take up to three weeks to repair a single broken cable using specialised ships.
The average undersea cable survives for about 25 years before needing replacement. A single cable break near a crucial junction could disrupt communications for entire regions.
Banking systems rely heavily on these cables – a major outage could freeze trillion-dollar markets.
Most cables are surprisingly thin – about the width of a garden hose despite crossing entire oceans.
Military communications could be severely compromised if strategic cable routes are disrupted.
Underwater animal attacks from sharks for example have decreased since protective shielding was improved, though bites still occur.
Meta said that it would lay the new cable system up to 7,000 meters deep and “use enhanced burial techniques in high-risk fault areas, such as shallow waters near the coast, to avoid damage from ship anchors and other hazards”.
It comes after company boss Mark Zuckerburg said last month that he was ending professional factchecking on Facebook and Instagram.
Meanwhile, in July last year, large parts of Tonga, in Oceania, were left without internet access after the undersea internet cable connecting the island network suffered significant damage.
