{"id":17375,"date":"2021-03-28T21:15:16","date_gmt":"2021-03-29T04:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.fb.com\/?p=17375"},"modified":"2026-01-29T13:33:01","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T21:33:01","slug":"echo-bifrost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.fb.com\/2021\/03\/28\/connectivity\/echo-bifrost\/","title":{"rendered":"Advancing connectivity between the Asia-Pacific region and North America"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are announcing two vital new subsea cables to connect Singapore, Indonesia, and North America.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">These will be the first transpacific cables through a new diverse route crossing the Java Sea and will increase overall transpacific capacity by 70 percent.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are committed to bringing more people online to a faster internet. As part of this effort, we\u2019re proud to announce that we have partnered with leading regional and global partners to build two new subsea cables \u2014 Echo and Bifrost \u2014 that will provide vital new connections between the Asia-Pacific region and North America. While these projects are still subject to regulatory approvals, when completed, these cables will deliver much-needed internet capacity, redundancy, and reliability.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the need for reliable internet access. The internet has enabled people around the world to remain connected while apart, continue their education, take care of their health, and be productively employed. In the Asia-Pacific region in particular, the demand for 4G, 5G, and broadband access is rapidly increasing. Echo and Bifrost will support further growth for hundreds of millions of people and millions of businesses. We know that economies flourish when there is widely accessible internet for people and businesses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not only will Echo and Bifrost be the first transpacific cables through a new diverse route crossing the Java Sea, but they also will increase overall transpacific capacity by 70 percent.\u00a0 Connecting Singapore, Indonesia, and North America, these cable investments reflect our commitment to openness and our innovative partnership model, in which we work with a variety of leading Indonesian and global partners to ensure that everyone benefits from developing scale infrastructure and shared technology expertise. We are excited to work with partners such as Indonesian companies Telin and XL Axiata and Singapore-based Keppel on these projects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17382\" src=\"https:\/\/engineering.fb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Bifrost-Echo_NA.jpg\" alt=\"Echo and Bifrost: Advancing connectivity between the Asia-Pacific region and North America\" width=\"1920\" height=\"918\" srcset=\"https:\/\/engineering.fb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Bifrost-Echo_NA.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/engineering.fb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Bifrost-Echo_NA.jpg?resize=916,438 916w, https:\/\/engineering.fb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Bifrost-Echo_NA.jpg?resize=768,367 768w, https:\/\/engineering.fb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Bifrost-Echo_NA.jpg?resize=1024,490 1024w, https:\/\/engineering.fb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Bifrost-Echo_NA.jpg?resize=1536,734 1536w, https:\/\/engineering.fb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Bifrost-Echo_NA.jpg?resize=96,46 96w, https:\/\/engineering.fb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Bifrost-Echo_NA.jpg?resize=192,92 192w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 992px) 100vw, 62vw\" \/><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Indonesia<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">These investments present an opportunity to enhance connectivity in the Central and Eastern Indonesian provinces, providing greater capacity and improved reliability for Indonesia\u2019s international data information infrastructure. Echo and Bifrost complement the subsea cables serving Indonesia today, increasing service quality and supporting the country\u2019s connectivity demands. This is all part of our continued effort to collaborate with partners in Indonesia to expand access to broadband internet and lower the cost of connectivity. For example, we<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/engineering.fb.com\/2020\/02\/25\/connectivity\/mobile-world-congress-2020\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> partnered with Alita<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, an Indonesian telecom network provider, to deploy 3,000 kilometers of metro fiber in 20 cities in Bali, Java, Kalimantan, and Sulawesi. In addition, we are improving connectivity by expanding Wi-Fi with <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/expresswifi.fb.com\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Express Wi-Fi<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Singapore<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Building on our previously announced <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/engineering.fb.com\/2019\/01\/14\/data-center-engineering\/singapore-data-center\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Singapore data center<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> investments, Echo and Bifrost will provide important diverse subsea capacity to power Singapore\u2019s digital growth and connectivity hub. We are excited to build on our other projects that connect to Singapore, including APG and SJC-2. Singapore is also home to many of our regional teams.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Asia-Pacific region is very important to us. As part of our work to bring more people online to a faster internet, these new projects add to our <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/about.fb.com\/news\/2020\/07\/facebook-connectivity-economic-benefits\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">foundational<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> regional investments in infrastructure and partnerships to improve connectivity to help close the digital divide and strengthen economies.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are announcing two vital new subsea cables to connect Singapore, Indonesia, and North America.\u00a0 These will be the first transpacific cables through a new diverse route crossing the Java Sea and will increase overall transpacific capacity by 70 percent.\u00a0\u00a0 We are committed to bringing more people online to a faster internet. As part of [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.fb.com\/2021\/03\/28\/connectivity\/echo-bifrost\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17385,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1974,1705,385],"class_list":["post-17375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-connectivity","fb_content_type-article"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Echo and Bifrost cables: Advancing connectivity - Engineering at Meta<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two new subsea cables \u2014 Echo and Bifrost \u2014 will provide vital new connections between the Asia-Pacific region and North America.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.fb.com\/2021\/03\/28\/connectivity\/echo-bifrost\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kevin Salvadori, Nico Roehrich, changigi649\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/28\\\/connectivity\\\/echo-bifrost\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/28\\\/connectivity\\\/echo-bifrost\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/28\\\/connectivity\\\/echo-bifrost\\\/#author\",\"name\":\"\"},\"headline\":\"Advancing connectivity between the Asia-Pacific region and North America\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-03-29T04:15:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-01-29T21:33:01+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/28\\\/connectivity\\\/echo-bifrost\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":521,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/28\\\/connectivity\\\/echo-bifrost\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/Indonesia.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Connectivity\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/28\\\/connectivity\\\/echo-bifrost\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/28\\\/connectivity\\\/echo-bifrost\\\/\",\"name\":\"Echo and Bifrost cables: Advancing connectivity - Engineering at Meta\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/28\\\/connectivity\\\/echo-bifrost\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/28\\\/connectivity\\\/echo-bifrost\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/Indonesia.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-03-29T04:15:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-01-29T21:33:01+00:00\",\"description\":\"Two new subsea cables \u2014 Echo and Bifrost \u2014 will provide vital new connections between the Asia-Pacific region and North America.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/28\\\/connectivity\\\/echo-bifrost\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/28\\\/connectivity\\\/echo-bifrost\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/28\\\/connectivity\\\/echo-bifrost\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/Indonesia.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.fb.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2021\\\/03\\\/Indonesia.jpg\",\"width\":1920,\"height\":1278,\"caption\":\"Students search for an internet signal before studying online on Temulawak hill in Indonesia. 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