Facebook and Amazon take over Philippines-to-USA sub cable after China Mobile quits
- Reference: 1629095589
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/08/16/china_mobile_quits_cap_1_submarine_cable/
- Source link:
The cable in question is called CAP-1 and will use six fibre pairs in a design capable of carrying a theoretical maximum 108 terabits per second. The 12,000km cable is expected to be ready to carry live data in late 2022.
Paperwork for the cable initially named China Mobile, Amazon and Edge as the operators of the cable.
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But the USA is currently not at all keen on Chinese carriers having any part of local telecoms infrastructure under the " [2]Clean Networks " plan enacted by the Trump administration.
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One element of the Clean Networks plan is named "Clean Cable" and states that the USA wants to ensure "undersea cables connecting our country to the global internet are not subverted for intelligence gathering by the People's Republic of China at hyper scale".
China Mobile's participation in CAP-1 was therefore unpalatable to the US government.
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Chinese telcos get a better reception in the Philippines, which granted DITO Telecommunity the right to operate the nation's third mobile network in full knowledge that China Telecom owns 40 per cent of the company.
[6]Australian government in talks to buy Pacific Islands' top telco
[7]Indian mega-carrier Jio to build pair of 200-terabit submarine cables
[8]Facebook's new hookup: A pair of submarine cables to link North America, Indonesia, Singapore
But CAP-1 won't be much use without approval to operate in the USA.
A [9]filing [PDF] with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) doesn't explain why China Mobile pulled out of the project, but does indicate legal work has started to ensure it has no involvement in CAP-1.
"After the transfer, CMI will not be a party to the CAP-1 joint build agreement or supply contract and will hold no voting or participation rights in the CAP-1 system," the filing states.
Once the legal niceties are complete, Edge/Facebook will own 83.3333 per cent of the cable and Amazon the remainder.
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The filing merely notes that a licence application for the above arrangements has been accepted for filing. The FCC's lengthy review and approval process now awaits Facebook and Amazon, but with China Mobile no longer attached and NEC America doing the build there are no obvious impediments to the project's completion.
Amazon and Facebook are expected to use the cable to haul user and customer data across the Pacific Ocean. It's entirely possible data traversing CAP-1 will end up in China, as at least three submarine cables connect directly between the Middle Kingdom and the Philippines, and at least one connects to Hong Kong. ®
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[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/06/usa_clean_network_plan/
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[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/18/jio_submarine_cables/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/30/facebook_new_submarine_cables/
[9] https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-374897A1.pdf
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[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
128Tb/sec?!
I won't mention porn. I won't mention porn. I won't mention porn!
Mmmmmmm... porn.
Hello more intercept and surveillance
We will need a lot more crypto..
So China might get the data
If Facebook is managing that data, I really don't see how China having it would be any worse.
Encrypt the endpoints!
As the US government showed Google, even if you have private cables and manage the ends, your data isn't safe.
Isn't it therefore now standard practice to encrypt the traffic as soon as it's travelling outside your property? In which case, where's the issue?
As an aside, where I used to work, we had a MOD related network link to Northern Ireland, and that was encrypted because underwater wasn't considered secure, and that was 25 years ago.
Re: Encrypt the endpoints!
...where's the issue?
Security services are adept at using end point analysis, which reveals much useful intel. While they'd obviously benefit from decrypting transmissions, it's mostly politicians that harp on about it.
So (easy access to) a nice big pipe facilitating end point analysis is a nice catch. If a foreign gov were controlling the pipe, US would need to compromise the system to gain access, with US companies controlling the pipe they can just ask for/bully access.
Re: Encrypt the endpoints!
I would have thought a big blob of encrypted data between 2 points (not individual streams) wouldn't offer much when there are so many simultaneous users either end!
As for your second point, yes, having China involved would make it harder for the US to snoop. I didn't think about that!
Re: Encrypt the endpoints!
Encrypting the messages doesn't necessarily stop people eavesdropping on what places you're visiting, or who you're talking to. Either of which can get you sent for "reeducation" in China.
Re: Encrypt the endpoints!
As I understand it, it's not encrypting individual packets for a stream, it would be encrypting the whole traffic that travels over the point to point link(s)
Subverted by US (tm)
108 terabits per second
Amazon & FB's slurping epeens must be raging.