The Bifrost subsea cable linking the US to Singapore is now ready for service.

Keppel Ltd. this week announced that the Bifrost Cable System has officially achieved Ready for Service (RFS) status and will now gear up to carry commercial traffic in the coming weeks.

The 19,888 km (12,357 miles) cable connects Singapore to the western US through the Java and Celebes seas with branching lines extending to Guam, Mexico, and the Philippines. The cable offers 260Tbps of capacity.

Manjot Singh Mann, CEO for connectivity at Keppel, said: “This landmark project will bolster digital connectivity between Southeast Asia and the USA. The Bifrost Cable System will reinforce Singapore’s position as a leading digital hub in Asia and support the region’s rapidly growing digital economy. We look forward to expanding our subsea cable footprint across Asia and beyond, as an integrated ecosystem partner to global cloud players and technology leaders.”

Developed in partnership with Keppel, Amazon, Meta, and Telkom Indonesia, the cable, which was announced in 2021, was originally scheduled to be operational by Q2 2024.

Keppel has been assigned five out of a total of 12 fiber pairs in Bifrost. The five pairs are jointly owned by Keppel and its private fund co-investors through a 40-60 joint venture.

Cable landing stations for the Bifrost cable system are to be located in Grover Beach, California; Alupang, Guam; Tuas, Singapore; Winema, Oregon; Rosarito, Mexico; Davao, Philippines; Manado and Jakarta, Indonesia.

Bifrost’s cable landing station in Singapore will be sited at Keppel DC REIT’s SGP 5 data center in Jurong. Telkom Indonesia’s Telin unit is developing a CLS outside Manado on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and another CLS in Jakarta.

The California CLS is controlled by an affiliate of Meta alongside Pacific Landing; GTA will own the Guam CLS, with control by Meta.

Cable ship operator OMS and Converge recently announced that the Bifrost cable had landed in Davao, Philippines. It landed in Manado in Indonesia earlier this month.

Dennis Anthony Uy, CEO of Converge, added: “The Philippines is in a prime location being in the center of the region, so this critical digital infrastructure - the Bifrost Cable System - is envisioned to support the booming connectivity needs of the Asia-Pacific region and provide an important direct link with the US. This will not only boost the company’s international bandwidth capacity, but for the Philippines, it will mean redundancy and diversity in network infrastructure to power the country’s digital journeys.”

Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), developed the cable. Alain Biston, CEO of ASN, said: “We are very proud to have been selected by Keppel and its partners to deliver this landmark project across the Pacific. Reaching this new milestone is a testament to the hard work of ASN teams working hand in hand with our client to bring Bifrost to Ready for Service.”