Facebook and Google have unveiled plans to link two new undersea cables linking North America to the Asia Pacific region, increasing transpacific capacity by a sizeable 70%.
Facebook announced that it would be investing with partners Echo and Bitfrost to connect Indonesia, Singapore and the North America.
Undersea cables are more reliable than satellites and possess a much larger capacity, transmitting approximately 95% of all international data between continents.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the need for reliable internet access. Echo and Bitfrost will support further growth for hundreds of millions of people and millions of businesses,” said Facebook in a blog on its site.
Google said that it would be involved in the Echo cable which would run from Eureka, California to Singapore, "with a stop-over in Guam" and a future connection to Indonesia.
Echo will be the first-ever cable to directly connect the US to Singapore with direct fibre pairs over an express route, Google Cloud Vice President Bikash Koley said.
Both tech companies halted efforts on a planned undersea cable that would have connected California and Hong Kong, due to tensions between the United States and China.
