US and Partners Call for ‘Verifiable' Subsea Cable Suppliers

The US and its Quad partners pledged $140 million to connect Pacific islands via subsea cables by 2025, pushing for "verified" cable providersBy Robert Clark, Light Reading
October 4, 2024

The subsea cable business, once an obscure corner of telecoms, continues to be a source of geopolitical intrigue. Subsea cables were a big topic at the Quad leaders' summit – the diplomatic alliance consisting of the US, India, Japan and Australia – which took place in the US last week.

In a joint statement, the four leaders said they aimed to ensure every Pacific island state is connected by a subsea cable by the end of 2025. The Quad governments have committed more than $140 million to undersea cable builds in the Pacific over the past 16 months.

The capacity and reliability of subsea cable systems “are inextricably linked to the security and prosperity of the region and the world,” the statement said. It cited a raft of initiatives, mostly small-bore, but which in aggregate underline the importance of the telecom sector, in particular for the remote Pacific Islands states.

One of the biggest is training. The US government says it has already conducted 1,300 training programs for Indo-Pacific countries and plans to invest another $3.4 million.

The Australian Foreign Affairs Department has committed 18 million Australian dollars (US$12.3 million) over four years on its new Cable Connectivity and Resilience Center, which will provide training and policy support for Pacific nations on subsea cable issues.

‘Verifiable providers'

Cables aside, the partners have also pledged $20 million to Open RAN, aiming to build the Pacific's first O-RAN network in Palau. The US and Japan have also tipped in $8 million for an O-RAN training center in the Philippines and another $7 million to expand it worldwide.

Meanwhile at the UN, the US and 18 other nations endorsed a statement on subsea cable security on September 26. The statement called for the implementation of cybersecurity best practice and of cooperation with “secure and verifiable subsea cable providers.”

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