- Fastnet will connect the United States to Ireland, with over 320 Tbps of capacity
- AWS will bury it 1.5m below the seabed to protect it from damage
- Additional AWS Regions and Availability Zones are in the works
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced plans to build a new transatlantic submarine cable to connect the United States to Ireland.
Scheduled to begin service in 2028, the route, dubbed Fastnet, will connect Maryland to Cork County and promises to provide more than 320 Tbps of capacity, which is equivalent to approximately 12.5 million HD streams or the transmission of the entire Library of Congress digitized three times per second.
AWS sees Fastnet as a new option to expand its largely dominant cable networks on the East Coast, where it will serve as a backup solution to reduce the risk of accidental outages or intentional sabotage.
AWS “Fastnet”
AWS explains that Fastnet will use an optical switching bypass unit so it can be flexible with routing and add additional landing points in the future.
In light of current geopolitical tensions and previous threats from undersea cables, the company will also bury it approximately 1.5 meters below the seabed. Fastnet will also be clad in additional armor near the shore. The cable itself, however, has been compared to the size of a garden hose.
Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin welcomed the investment, noting: “By connecting County Cork in Maryland to the United States, Ireland will become a real gateway to Europe for submarine telecommunications cables. »
Fastnet adds to Amazon’s extensive network of terrestrial and submarine cables, which spans more than nine million kilometers. The company also took advantage of this announcement to remind us that 10 additional availability zones and three AWS regions are in the works.
“The ability to maintain seamless connectivity across geographies isn’t just about speed: it’s also about having secure and reliable paths for data to flow between continents,” Amazon wrote.
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