- Fastnet will connect the US with Ireland, with more than 320 Tbps of capacity
- AWS will bury it 1.5m under the seabed to protect it from damage
- More AWS regions and availability zones are in the works
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced plans to build a new transatlantic submarine cable to connect the United States to Ireland.
The route, expected to come online in 2028, called Fastnet, will connect Maryland to County Cork and promises to deliver more than 320 Tbps of capacity, roughly equivalent to 12.5 million HD transmissions or the transmission of the entire Library of Congress digitized three times per second.
AWS sees Fastnet as a new option to expand its cable networks, predominantly predominant on the East Coast, where it will act as a backup to reduce the risks of accidental outages or intentional sabotage.
AWS ‘Fastnet’
AWS explains that Fastnet will use an optical switching branch unit so you can be flexible with routing and add additional landing points in the future.
In light of current geopolitical tensions and previous threats to the undersea cable, the company will also bury it approximately 1.5 meters below the seabed. Fastnet will also be clad in additional armor near the coast. However, the cable itself has been compared to the size of a garden hose.
Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin welcomed the investment, saying: “By linking County Cork with Maryland in the United States, Ireland will become a true gateway to Europe for undersea telecommunications cables.”
Fastnet joins Amazon’s extensive network of terrestrial and undersea cables, which spans more than nine million kilometers. The company also used the announcement to remind us that another 10 availability zones and three AWS regions are in the works.
“The ability to maintain seamless connectivity across geographies isn’t just about speed — it’s about having secure, reliable paths for data to flow between continents,” Amazon wrote.
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