Here in the bright, white technological heat of 2025, wireless seems to be the way for everything. So, it's somewhat sobering to be reminded of the prosaic physical reality that underpins modern comms, namely that really long cables carry as much as 98% of internet traffic. Enter Meta's mooted new internet cable, which is planned to be longer than the circumference of the Earth and up to four miles down into the sea.
If that seems immediately counter-intuitive, such cables obviously don't just go in a straight line across the surface of the planet. Indeed, in a blog post (via the Guardian) Meta says new cable will connect the US, India, South Africa, Brazil and more.
Meta describes the new cable as, "a multi-billion dollar, multi-year investment to strengthen the scale and reliability of the world’s digital highways by opening three new oceanic corridors with the abundant, high speed connectivity needed to drive AI innovation around the world."
"We continue to advance engineering design to maintain cable resilience, enabling us to build the longest 24 fiber pair cable project in the world and enhance overall speed of deployment. We are also deploying first-of-its-kind routing, maximizing the cable laid in deep water—at depths up to 7,000 meters—and using enhanced burial techniques in high-risk fault areas, such as shallow waters near the coast, to avoid damage from ship anchors and other hazards," Meta says.
