Facebook And Google Are Working On Undersea Cables To Connect America And Southeast Asia The Cables Will Improve Internet Connection In Indonesia, Says Facebook

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Facebook and Google are planning to improve global internet connection capacity by placing a pair of undersea cables between Southeast Asia and America.

Specifically, the cables will run from North America to Singapore and Indonesia. Notably, these will be the first cables to run from America to the main parts of Indonesia.

The cables’ purpose is to boost internet connection capacity, a long-running goal of these companies. According to Reuters, much of Indonesia has poor access to the Internet – or no access at all.

“ will be the first two cables to go through a new diverse route crossing the Java Sea and they will increase overall subsea capacity in the trans-pacific by about 70%,” explained Facebook vice president of network investments, Kevin Salvadori.

The first cable, called ‘Echo’, is expected to launch by 2023. It is being worked on through a partnership between Facebook, Google, and an Indonesian telecommunications company called XL Alxatia.

The second cable, called ‘Bifrost’, is expected to launch by 2024. It is being worked on through a partnership between an Indonesian company called Telin and a Singaporean company called Keppel.

“We are working with partners and regulators to meet all of the concerns that people have, and we look forward to that cable being a valuable, productive transpacific cable going forward in the near future,” said Salvadori.

Recently, Facebook axed its plans to connect a similar cable between California and Hong Kong. Facebook cited “ongoing concerns from the US government about direct communication links between the United States and Hong Kong” for its decision to cancel the cable.

Tags - In The News, Facebook, google, internet

Wade Morris

Wade brings an energetic approach to writing – he is always on the hunt for stories and angles that matter. With years of experience in journalism and marketing environments, Wade has written about everything from politics to education. Now, he writes about SEO and digital marketing trends.

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Facebook is ditching podcasts and plans to stop offering them from June 3.

The social-media giant will no longer allow users to add podcasts to the service as of this week but plans to remove them altogether starting June. Both its short-form audio product Soundbites and the central audio hub will be discontinued, Bloomberg reports.

These options were first introduced last April, as part of Facebook’s broader effort to promote social audio. That’s when Meta presented a range of upcoming podcast options: on-page display tools and direct connection options. Both were supposed to let Facebook users listen to podcasts from within the app without leaving it. In June, Meta launched its podcast support tools, with several launch partners.

they’re also shutting down soundbites, their shortform audio product, and getting rid of the audio hub. live audio rooms are just becoming part of facebook live
— Ashley Carman (@ashleyrcarman) May 2, 2022

Now, not even a year later, Facebook is shifting its focus to other initiatives.

We’re constantly evaluating the features we offer so we can focus on the most meaningful experiences – a Meta spokesperson said in an email sent to Bloomberg. The person allegedly added that they don’t have a specific date on when Soundbites and the audio hub would shut down but it will be in the “coming weeks.”

Facebook will also cut the site’s Soundbites and Audio hubs and integrate its Live Audio Rooms feature into its broader Facebook Live suite. They also said they will not warn users of this, but will rather let creators break the news how they see fit.

Why the change? Probably because they need to save some money:

After the start of COVID, the acceleration of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth, but we’re now seeing that trend back off. However, based on the strong revenue growth we saw in 2021, we kicked off several 2 multi-year projects to accelerate some of our longer-term investments, especially in our AI infrastructure, business platform, and Reality Labs. These investments are going to be important for our success and growth over time so I continue to believe we should see them through. But with our current business growth levels, we’re now planning to slow the pace of some of our investments.

This might not be a big deal and some significant news for everyone, but as Andrew Hutchinson from Social Media Today noticed, it shows how Facebook’s focus can easily shift and ‘betray’ the creators that use the platform. What does that mean for future Meta visitors and builders?