• The cable is designed to link Singapore and Jakarta with California via Guam on a route that avoids the South China Sea
  • Its California-Guam section is already operating at 260Tbps, but the full Singapore-US route is not yet in service

The fact

The Echo subsea cable, a joint project of Meta and Google, landed in Singapore on 31 July. It is designed to connect Singapore and Jakarta with Eureka, California, via Guam, avoiding the South China Sea. Once complete, the system will span more than 17,000km. NEC is supplying the cable.

Echo was first announced in 2021 and is already carrying traffic between California and Guam, a section Meta says provides 260Tbps of capacity. Bifrost, another trans-Pacific cable that avoids the South China Sea, entered service in October 2025. The Singapore landing brings Echo further into Southeast Asia, but the system is not yet operating end to end between Singapore and the US.

The assessment

Bifrost already provides a US-Southeast Asia route that avoids the South China Sea. Once Echo is fully in service, carriers buying trans-Pacific capacity could have another cable on which to place traffic between the two regions.

That matters most for network planning. A second route gives operators another option when deciding how to divide capacity across cables, although its practical use will depend on what capacity is offered and where customers can connect to the system. The Singapore landing alone does not change those choices: Echo still needs to enter service across the full route.

For BTW readers, Echo only starts to change network planning once carriers can actually buy and use capacity on the full Southeast Asia-US route. Until then, the Singapore landing remains a step towards service rather than a change in available connectivity.

What to watch

A full ready-for-service announcement for the Singapore-Indonesia-Guam-California route is the next step. Activated capacity and customer service dates will show when carriers can use Echo end to end. Any commercial launch should also clarify how much capacity is available beyond the California-Guam section already in operation.