The world's longest submarine cable is coming: connecting three continents longer than the equator

Submarine optical cable and satellite communication have become the main means of contemporary intercontinental communication. Submarine optical cables are laid on the seabed for telecommunication transmission between countries and are the backbone of the global Internet. The networks of various countries in the world can be regarded as large local area networks, and submarine and land optical cables connect them into the Internet.

Facebook announced a few days ago that it plans to extend the 2Africa submarine cable by 8,000 kilometers to connect the three continents of Africa, Europe and Asia. By then, the total length of the cable will exceed 45,000 kilometers, making it the longest submarine cable in the world.

Announced in May 2020, the 2Africa submarine cable project was initially planned to circumnavigate Africa and connect Europe to connect 1.2 billion people. Now the project has added nine new landing sites called "Pearls", expanding the number of countries connected to 33 and serving a population expected to reach 3 billion people.

At present, the world's longest submarine cable is SEA-ME-WE 3, with a total length of 39,000 kilometers, connecting 33 countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Western Europe, and it was put into operation in 2013.

Compared with terrestrial optical cables, submarine optical cables have many advantages: first, laying does not require digging tunnels or supporting them with brackets, so the investment is low and the construction speed is fast; Affected by the damage of natural environment such as wind and waves and the interference of human production activities, the cable is safe and stable, with strong anti-interference ability and good confidentiality.