Meta has announced Petal, a subsea cable that it says will be the first to deliver petabit capacity across an ocean.
The cable will connect the US and France over about 7,000km (more than 4,300 miles) and is expected to enter service in 2029. Where traditional cables carry capacity measured in terabits per second, Petal will deliver 1 petabit per second, doubling the capacity of today’s most advanced transoceanic cables.
Meta says that is roughly the network capacity needed for 75% of the world’s population to stream music at the same time, and describes Petal as the single largest generational increase in capacity of any transoceanic subsea cable system.
Petal will be the first cable system to use multi-core fibre technology at transoceanic distances. Doubling capacity would normally mean building twice as many cables, but Meta says Petal’s design allows twice the data to be carried without a proportional increase in power or physical infrastructure.
The company is partnering with NEC, a specialist in subsea cable systems, and working with fibre producer Sumitomo Electric Industries to develop the cable. French telecoms company Orange is working with Meta on plans to land Petal on France’s Atlantic coast.
Subsea cables carry about 99% of intercontinental internet traffic. Meta says it has invested in more than 20 subsea cable projects, including Project Waterworth.
