Can stream 12.5 million HD movies simultaneously: Amazon makes 'Big' claim for its first-ever subsea internet cable project Fastnet

Amazon is constructing Fastnet , its first wholly-owned subsea fibre-optic cable project . This project stretches from Maryland's Eastern Shore in the US to County Cork, Ireland. This new cable is designed to meet the increasing demand for cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and edge applications that rely on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company claims Fastnet's capacity will exceed 320 terabits per second, which Amazon says is equivalent to streaming 12.5 million HD movies simultaneously. Subsea fibre-optic cables are critical infrastructure, carrying over 95% of international data and voice traffic globally, including government communications, financial transactions, email, and video calls. Amazon has previously invested in several subsea cable projects as part of consortia, such as Jako, Bifrost, and Havfrue. However, Fastnet marks the company's first solo venture in building such infrastructure.

What Amazon executive said about Fastnet
In an interview about its subsea cable investments with CNBC, Matt Rehder, Amazon Web Services vice president of core networking, said: “Subsea is really essential for AWS and for any connectivity internationally across oceans. Without subsea, you’d have to rely on satellite connectivity, which can work, But satellite has higher latency, higher costs, and you just can’t get enough capacity or throughput to what our customers and the internet in general need.”

Fastnet is expected to enhance Amazon’s network resilience. However, the company did not disclose the construction cost but stated that the system is planned to be operational by 2028. Other major technology firms, including Google, Meta, and Microsoft, have also been investing in subsea cable infrastructure.