Keppel’s Bifrost Cable System gets US green light

The 20,000 km subsea cable will be the first system to connect the city-state to the west.

Keppel Ltd. has received regulatory approval for its Bifrost Cable System, a subsea cable system it is jointly developing with Edge Cable Holdings USA, LLC (Meta) and PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (Telin).

In a statement, Keppel said the subsea cable landing license was granted by the United States Federal Communications Commission (USFCC). The project, spanning 20,000 kilometres, will be the world’s first that directly connects Singapore to the west coast of North America via Indonesia through the Java Sea and Celebes Sea.

“The achievement of the USFCC cable landing license marks the final approval in an extensive transnational regulatory approval process, paving the way for Bifrost’s successful deployment,” Keppel said.

Bifrost, which commenced system commissioning and acceptance testing on 21 January, is expected to be ready for commercial service in the second half of 2025. Its cable landing station in Singapore will be sited at Keppel DC REIT’s SGP 5 data centre in Jurong.

The project is also part of Keppel's end-to-end connectivity ecosystem, spanning power, off-grid solutions, green energy, cooling, subsea cable connectivity and data centre solutions.

In March 2021, Keppel initiated the Bifrost project with its partners Meta and Telin. It was assigned five out of a total of 12 fibre pairs that it jointly owns with its private fund co-investors through a 40-60 joint venture. Of these, two fibre pairs have since been committed to customers through Indefeasible Rights of Use (IRU) for 25 years, whilst IRUs for the remaining pairs are currently being negotiated with potential customers.

After Bifrost’s completion, Keppel will continue to operate and maintain its five fibre pairs over a period of 25 years.

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