Facebook is abandoning plans to lay a fiber-optic cable to Hong Kong under the Pacific Ocean amid US pressure. The Wall Street Journal writes about it.
Consortium Facebook Inc. withdrew its application to create a new Internet channel between California and Hong Kong after months of pressure from US national security officials.
“Due to ongoing concerns by the US government regarding direct communications between the US and Hong Kong, we have decided to withdraw our FCC filing. We look forward to working with all parties to reconfigure the system to address the concerns of the US government, ” said a Facebook spokesman.
Facebook and several telecom partners first filed a permit to build a fiber optic cable in 2018. He would link two sites in California with subsidiaries in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
This is the last project between the fibers of the Pacific to stall due to US resistance.
A separate Pacific light cable network, funded by Facebook and Google owner Alphabet Inc., is also on hold as its builders are asking permission to activate a link for non-Chinese data.
Facebook has announced it is considering a possible submarine fiber optic cable around Africa. The goal of the project is to reduce the cost of providing access to broadband Internet on the continent and attracting new users to the social network.
