Meta is reportedly planning to build a subsea cable connecting Taiwan to the US.
As reported by industry observer Roderick Beck on LinkedIn, the six fiber pair cable - dubbed ORCA - will have three landing points in Toucheng, Taiwan; and Hermosa Beach and Manchester in California, US.
The 12,000km cable is expected to be ready for service in Q1 2027, with a relatively low capacity of around 12.8Tbps per fiber pair.
As an open cable owned solely by Meta, Meta will likely sell capacity on the system to third parties, allowing each fiber pair owner to operate and control its own fronthaul system.
Beck noted on LinkedIn: “I believe the branching architecture serves as a way to improve resiliency. Each branch has six fiber pairs, just like the main trunk. This enables all the traffic on a down branch to be rerouted to the surviving branch.”
Meta currently has involvement in several subsea cables, including the Echo, Bifrost, Havhinsten, Amite, and Anjana cables. Its 2Africa cable is now partly operational.
At the end of last year, the tech giant was reported to be building an around-the-world subsea cable.
Toucheng in Taiwan is currently a landing point for the APG, FLAG North Asia Loop, NCP, and PLCN subsea cables, whilst Hermosa Beach is the landing point for the Jupiter, Southern Cross NEXT, and SEA-US cables. ORCA will be the first cable to land in Manchester.
The Hermosa Beach cable landing station was built by RTI Holdings before its bankruptcy in 2021. It later rebranded and relaunched as HMB IX.