Facebook said on Monday it and Google are working together with regional telecommunications companies to build two new undersea cables to connect Singapore, Indonesia and North America to boost internet connection capacity between the regions.
Facebook Vice President of Network Investments, Kevin Salvadori, told Reuters the cables are named Echo and Bifrost, and they will be first two cables to go through a new diverse route crossing the Java Sea increasing overall subsea capacity in the trans-pacific by about 70 percent.
The cables will be the first to connect North America directly to some of the main parts of Indonesia, and will increase connectivity for the central and eastern provinces of the world’s fourth most populous country, he said.
Salvadori added Echo is being built in partnership with Alphabet’s Google and Indonesian telecommunications’ company XL Axiata and should be completed by 2023. Bifrost is being done in partnership with Telin, a subsidiary of Indonesia’s Telkom, and Singaporean conglomerate Keppel is due to be completed by 2024.
