Facebook and Nokia successfully test new technique that boosts the speed of existing undersea cables from 13Tbps to 32Tbps
An experimental technology from Nokia could expand a submarine cable's capacity by 2.5 times — Facebook and Nokia have found a way to push a lot more data through …
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook has spent years buying its own transatlantic and intercontinental routes rather than renting them: the 160Tbps Marea project with Microsoft, a 120Tbps Los Angeles–Hong Kong build with Google, and the 2Africa consortium extending around two continents. Those are multi-hundred-million-dollar construction bets, so anything that multiplies what an already-laid fiber pair carries directly changes their return math.
First-order effects
- Facebook gets a path to 2.5x more capacity on existing cable assets without new construction spend, stretching the payoff of its Marea-era investments.
- Nokia turns a lab result into a sales argument for submarine optical upgrades against the transport vendors already installed on hyperscaler routes.
Second-order effects
- If upgrades deliver capacity at a fraction of a new build's cost, consortium members have less urgency to fund parallel cables, softening demand for new construction while raising the value of whoever owns the upgrade technology.
- More terabits per route increases effective supply on major paths, which pressures wholesale capacity pricing and forces rival cable owners to match the upgrade cadence or compete on price.
Third-order effects
- Undersea cables shift from fixed one-time builds toward software-and-optics-upgradeable assets, with hyperscalers treating capacity as something they re-invest in over a cable's life rather than replace — and vendors like Nokia competing on upgrade economics instead of just hardware wins.
The trend: Hyperscalers are converting undersea cables from static construction projects into continuously upgradeable network assets, with optical-vendor breakthroughs setting how much each laid fiber pair is ultimately worth.