Meta plans to launch Petal between the US and France with 1 Pbit/s capacity — Live Science
Meta plans to launch the 7,000-km Petal submarine fiber-optic cable between the United States and France in 2029. Its stated capacity will be up to 1 million gigabits per second, or 1 petabit per second, Live Science reports.
According to Meta's calculations, the cable will be able to transmit about 125 terabytes of data every second. This is roughly equivalent to transmitting 25,000 HD movies of 5 GB each. Company representatives said Petal will become the first transoceanic cable with petabit capacity and will have twice the capacity of existing submarine cables of similar length.
Dual-core optical fiber
Petal is set to become the first commercial submarine cable system with multicore fiber. Each fiber, about 125 micrometers thick, will contain two cores through which optical signals will be transmitted in opposite directions. This design enables a single fiber to provide the capacity that would normally require a pair of single-core fibers.
The cable will consist of 24 pairs of dual-core fibers, for a total of 96 separate cores. According to Meta engineers, this will be equivalent to the capacity of 48 pairs of conventional fiber. Japan's NEC will be responsible for the overall design and construction of the system, while Sumitomo Electric will supply the fiber.
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Signal amplification over long distances
To transmit data over such a distance, the cable will use repeaters — amplifiers that boost optical signals with lasers. A 7,000-km cable usually requires about 100 such devices.
Petal will also use fan-in/fan-out technology: in a repeater, signals from each core of a dual-core fiber will be split into separate single-core fibers for independent amplification, after which they will be returned to the dual-core fiber. Meta said this will make it possible to double capacity without a proportional increase in power consumption.
Submarine cables carry about 99% of global internet traffic, according to the UN International Telecommunication Union. Petal will be another Meta investment in this infrastructure after the Marea, Amitie and Anjana cables. Marea, the company's first transatlantic fiber-optic line, supports 192 terabits per second, meaning Petal will have more than five times the stated capacity.
