Meta plans to connect the United States and France with Petal, a 4,300-mile undersea internet cable scheduled to begin operating in 2029. The company will fund and operate the system. According to Meta, it will be the first ocean-crossing cable to offer one petabit per second, equal to one million gigabits per second.
The cable uses thin glass fibers that carry information through light signals. Most conventional fibers have one central path, or core, but Petal’s fibers have two. This design doubles the amount of data the cable can carry without requiring twice as much power. Its 24 pairs of two-core fibers will provide the capacity of 48 conventional fiber pairs. About 100 devices called repeaters will strengthen the light signals during their journey across the ocean.
NEC is responsible for building the cable system, while Sumitomo Electric supplies the special glass fibers. Orange will manage the cable’s arrival on France’s Atlantic coast and connect it to Europe’s land-based network. The project builds on Meta’s earlier undersea cables, including Anjana, which Petal is designed to surpass with twice the capacity.
