The fibre-optic cables under the ocean carry over 99% of intercontinental internet traffic. This directory profiles the major systems by activation year: route, length, design capacity, fibre pair count, ownership consortium and landing stations. Each cable links to the operator pages and source citations.
High-capacity Pacific cable from Singapore to the US West Coast via Indonesia, Guam. Initial design capacity of 1.28 Pbps at activation made it one of the highest-capacity systems in service. Named after the Norse bridge…
Mediterranean cable activated 2025 linking the Iberian Peninsula to Morocco. Strengthens Spanish-Moroccan connectivity that has historically relied on a small number of older systems.…
Sixth-generation SEA-ME-WE system. Activated 2025. Carries up to 126 Tbps per fibre pair on the same general route as its predecessors.…
The longest submarine cable system ever built, encircling Africa with branches into Europe, the Middle East and India. 46 landings across 33 countries. The "Pearls" extension adds the Arabian Gulf landings. Activated in …
Meta's first solo-owned trans-Atlantic cable. The 24-fibre-pair design pushed the at-activation capacity ceiling significantly higher. Lands in Santander, Spain, and Virginia Beach, sharing a major US hub but at a Spanis…
Multi-landed Asian cable connecting Japan to Singapore via the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan and Guam. Built jointly by Google and Meta with regional carrier partners.…
Pair of Google-owned cables (BLUE on the Mediterranean leg, RAMAN on the Red Sea / Arabian Sea leg) providing a direct alternate route between Italy and India, bypassing the Egypt landing concentration that the SEA-ME-WE…
Caribbean-Central America regional cable activated 2024. Modernises a route previously served by aging 2000s-era cables.…
Domestic US subsea cable connecting Atlantic and Gulf coast landings. Activated 2024. Provides domestic east-coast-to-Gulf-coast redundancy that previously had to use long terrestrial routes.…
Google-owned 12-pair cable linking Brazil with Europe via Bermuda. The first direct Brazil-Portugal cable from a hyperscaler. Strengthens trans-Atlantic redundancy for the southern Americas.…
South Africa to Brazil cable activated 2024, with Argentine extension. Closes a long-standing gap in direct South Atlantic connectivity. The route had previously been served only via European or US transit.…
First direct cable connecting Singapore to the US West Coast via Guam. Adds substantial trans-Pacific southern route capacity. Lands at Jakarta with the first such direct US route for Indonesia.…
Google-owned 12-pair cable connecting US East Coast to Argentina and Brazil. The longest cable able to operate from a single end-station (a redundancy feature). Named after the Brazilian abolitionist Maria Firmina dos Re…
First trans-Pacific cable connecting Canada directly to Japan. Google-owned. Adds northern Pacific diversity to a route concentration that previously ran almost entirely through California.…
A 16-pair trans-Atlantic cable jointly owned by Meta, Microsoft and the Aqua Comms consortium. Lands in Lynn, Massachusetts and Le Porge, with a branching unit serving Bude. Notable for being one of the highest-capacity …
Google-owned cable along the West African coast, with landings in Portugal, Nigeria, Togo, Saint Helena and South Africa. Triples the available international capacity for several West African countries. Named after Olaud…
Google's 16-fibre-pair cable connecting New York with both Bilbao and Bude. The cable physically separates into two branches mid-Atlantic, providing diverse paths to two European landing stations. Named after Grace Hoppe…
First direct cable connecting the Arabian Peninsula to Australia. Activated 2022. Significant addition to Indian Ocean connectivity diversity, which was previously dominated by cables transiting Southeast Asia.…
Pacific cable originally planned to land in Hong Kong; the Hong Kong segment was removed at US national-security request before activation. Activated in 2022 with landings in Taiwan and the Philippines instead.…
Successor cable to Southern Cross 1, activated 2022. Direct routing Sydney to Los Angeles. Adds Pacific island landings at Kiribati and Tokelau.…
Direct Brazil-to-EU cable, the first new cable on that route in over 20 years. Significantly reduces latency between Latin America and Europe (sub-60 ms São Paulo to Madrid). Notable for terminating in Sines rather than …
Activated 2021. North Sea cable linking Denmark to Ireland via the UK. Major capacity addition for Irish landings.…
Google-owned 12-fibre-pair cable connecting France to Virginia. The first private trans-Atlantic cable owned entirely by a single hyperscaler. Named after Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross. Uses space-division multi…
Connects the US East Coast to Denmark, with a branch to Kristiansand, Norway. Joint Aqua Comms, Bulk Infrastructure, Meta and Google project. The cable is the first to land in the Nordics directly from the US in over a d…
Short domestic Brazilian cable connecting São Paulo to Rio. Google-owned. Provides intra-Brazil capacity and diverse routing for international cables landing at one or the other endpoint.…
First privately owned hyperscaler trans-Pacific cable connecting Chile to the US. Named after Marie Curie. Opens an alternative South Pacific path that bypasses the Brazil-USA cluster.…
Companion to INDIGO West connecting Sydney and Perth via diverse domestic submarine route, providing redundancy for inter-city Australian traffic that would otherwise rely entirely on terrestrial fibre.…
Connects Perth directly to Singapore. Activated 2019. Carries the bulk of Western Australia-to-Asia traffic.…
Telxius (Telefónica) cable connecting Brazil to the US via Puerto Rico. The major commercial Brazil-USA route at activation. Eight-fibre-pair design with branches at multiple Caribbean points.…
Australia / New Zealand to US West Coast cable activated 2018. First major trans-Pacific cable to the southern hemisphere antipodes. Owned by BW Digital after the original Hawaiki Submarine Cable Limited venture.…
High-capacity trans-Atlantic cable connecting Bilbao to Virginia Beach. When activated in 2018, MAREA carried more capacity than any other trans-Atlantic system. Owned jointly by Microsoft, Meta and Telxius (Telefónica).…
South Atlantic Inter Link cable activated 2018. The first direct subsea cable connecting South America and West Africa, a route previously unserved by undersea cables.…
Google-owned regional cable linking Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. Provides high-capacity southern South American connectivity that previously required transiting US-bound cables.…
Massive Asia-Africa-Europe system with 19 landings, transiting the Mediterranean, Suez, Red Sea and Indian Ocean to reach Southeast Asia. The cable most affected by the 2024 Houthi disruptions in the Red Sea.…
Pacific island cable system providing critical connectivity for several US-affiliated Pacific island territories.…
Activated 2017. Google-co-owned cable connecting Florida to Brazil. The first cable in the US East-Brazil corridor with hyperscaler ownership.…
Sparkle-owned cable connecting São Paulo region to New York via direct trans-Atlantic route. Significant lowering of Brazil-US latency at activation, undercutting the older AMERICAS-II / GlobeNet by hundreds of kilometre…
Multi-landed Asian cable connecting Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore. Activated 2016. Workhorse for intra-Asian traffic.…
Google-led six-fibre-pair cable connecting Oregon to Japan. Activated 2016. First Google major trans-Pacific investment. Notable for the unusual landing at Bandon, Oregon, away from the typical California concentration.…
Activated 2016. The most recent generation of SEA-ME-WE systems on the Europe-Asia trunk route.…
America Movil-owned cable connecting US east coast down the Pacific coast of South America. Activated 2014. Important for Peruvian and Chilean Pacific-coast connectivity.…
Multi-landing Asian cable activated 2013. One of the workhorse cables of the Asia-Pacific region, linking Japan with several Southeast Asian countries.…
Single cable connecting Tonga to Fiji. Famous for being severed in January 2022 by the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai volcanic eruption, leaving Tonga without internet for weeks. Repaired and operational.…
24-landing cable down the West African coast operated by an Orange-led consortium. The longest single submarine cable system serving the West African coast prior to Equiano and 2Africa.…
West Africa Cable System activated 2012. Down the African Atlantic coast to South Africa. Owned by an African-led consortium. Suffered major disruption in March 2024 when several West African cables were severed simultan…
Activated 2011 by Nigerian operator Globacom. The first cable connecting Nigeria directly to the UK without consortium ownership. Provided significant capacity boost to Nigerian telecoms at activation.…
Telstra-owned cable across the Bass Strait connecting Tasmania to the Australian mainland. Tasmania has three cables in service for redundancy on a route prone to fishing-vessel anchor damage.…
East African coastal cable activated 2010. The first major undersea cable to serve much of the East African coast directly. Often paired with the SEACOM cable for diversity.…
Activated 2010. Google's first trans-Pacific cable investment. Five-fibre-pair design. Notable for being one of the first cables co-owned by a hyperscaler.…
First high-capacity cable serving the East African coast, activated 2009. Connects East Africa to both Europe and India. The cable that materially changed East African internet economics on activation.…
Not strictly submarine; a terrestrial cable but treated as part of the global undersea-equivalent infrastructure on the Frankfurt-Beijing route. Provides the major Europe-China terrestrial alternative to the SEA-ME-WE un…
Activated 2005. Higher capacity replacement for SMW3 on the Mediterranean-Asia route. Frequently damaged by anchors in the Red Sea, leading to coordinated repair operations with sister cables.…
Long-running trans-Pacific cable activated 2000. Multiple landings across the South Pacific including Fiji. The major Australia-USA route before Hawaiki.…
The classic intercontinental cable activated 1999. 39 landings in 33 countries spanning Germany to Australia, including the only landing in many small countries. Replaced in significance by newer high-capacity cables but…
Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe. Activated 1997. The original Europe-Asia trunk cable, owned today by Reliance. The first to deploy at-scale wavelength-division multiplexing on a global route.…
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