META✴ (Facebook✴) will pave the ORCA cable of six fiber -fiber couples directly connecting Taiwan with the United States. Landing stations will operate in Toucheng in Taiwan, in the Hermosa Beach in California and Manchester (also in California), reports Subsea Cables. It is assumed that the cable will be ready for operation in the II quarter of 2027.
In the application for connecting an underwater cable to the ground infrastructure Facebook, she noted that she is guided by the rapid growth of traffic between Taiwan and the United States. Due to the fact that the length of the cable is 12 thousand kilometers, and along the way there will be no way to regenerate the signal, the design capacity of the cable is not too large: 12.8 TBIT/s for a couple or 76.8 TBIT/s together.
Orca is an “open” cable, each pair in which will have a terminal equipment controlled by individual owners, only energy supply will be collective. Since Meta✴ is the only owner of the digital line, it will probably sell the capacity to third -party customers to recoup investment and share operating expenses.
Image source: Telegeography
The company has other, even larger projects. In December 2024, it was reported that META✴ is preparing a round -the -world underwater cable with a length of 40 thousand km, the cost of the project is $ 10 billion. In addition, the company is a co -owner of the 2AFRICA cable system with a length of about 45 thousand km.