We wanted to pop by and share a few summer stories that our team has been reading lately.
We suggest you start with the Foreign Policy number we linked below. This piece prods at the geography of digitalization—more specifically, the "systemic vulnerabilities across public and private networks and dangerous weaknesses in supply chains."
Have you seen an $8 billion figure floating around the internet over the last week? Specifically that we could see $8 billion in new cable investments over the next three years?
It's true—and you can explore our 2021 submarine cable map to see what that's about.
What can we say about this month's roundup of recommended telecom reads?
We've got a brilliant BBC review of recent content provider cable investments. We dabble in the latest satellite news. We begin the 6G discourse. We even sprinkle in a little submarine cable TikTok, as a treat.
We've said it before and we'll say it again. When it comes to the global bandwidth market, the two most predictable trends are persistent demand growth and price erosion.
But if the latest update of our Global Bandwidth Research Service teaches us anything, it's that there's more beneath the surface.
We often say that we'll be taking a "deep dive" into an issue at the beginning of our WAN Manager Podcasts. Today we almost mean that literally, as Greg welcomes TeleGeography Research Director Alan Mauldin to talk about submarine cables.
Readers of our Pricing Suite's latest Bandwidth Pricing Report already know that the Middle East serves as both an important node and a crucial transitway for international capacity.
Cable operators were extremely busy between 2011 and 2017 when they turned up nine new cables in the region. But submarine cable activity slowed quite a bit between 2018 and 2020, as no new cables were launched in the region.
With the annual update of our Global Bandwidth Research Service comes new insights for 2021.
Here's the big news: between 2018 and 2020 alone, international bandwidth used by global networks more than doubled to exceed 2,000 Tbps.
What's everyone been reading this month?
A new subsea cable between Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands leads our list of telecom stories this month.
Expected to be ready for service by 2022, it's not just tortoises who will enjoy improved capacity. The project will "provide significant benefits for tourism, scientific research, education, and commerce in the region."
Tech giants are investing in submarine cables, sure. But you already know that part of the story.
It gets interesting when we look closer at the number of cables hyperscalers are investing in, for how much, and where.
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