Facebook consortium shelves plans for California-Hong Kong subsea system

News Broadband China 11 MRT 2021
Facebook consortium shelves plans for California-Hong Kong subsea system

A consortium including Facebook has abandoned its plan to build a new international subsea cable between California and Asia following security concerns from US government officials, the Wall Street Journal reports. Facebook told the US Federal Communications Commission in a filing it would withdraw its application to land the Hong Kong-Americas project, known by its abbreviation HKA, pending a new request for a "possibly-reconfigured" submarine system

Facebook and several telecom operators first filed for permission to build the fibre-optic cable in 2018. It would have connected two sites in California with branches to Hong Kong and Taiwan. However, growing concerns in the US government about Chinese access to key communications infrastructure prompted the companies to reconsider the plans. 

It is the latest cross-Pacific fibre project to stall due to US resistance. A separate Pacific Light Cable Network funded by Facebook and Google is also on hold as its builders seek permission to activate the data links that don’t touch Chinese territory. Facebook and Amazon.com last year also withdrew their application to build the Bay-to-Bay Express system, a planned network linking Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the US.

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