Apollo

Overview

Apollo is a transatlantic submarine cable system linking the United Kingdom and France to two landing points on the eastern seaboard of the United States. At roughly 13,000 kilometres in length, it spans one of the busiest and most strategically significant corridors in global telecommunications — the North Atlantic route connecting European and North American internet infrastructure.

Route and Landing Points

The system comes ashore at Bude in Cornwall on the southwest coast of England, and at Lannion in Brittany on the northwest coast of France. On the western side of the Atlantic, it lands at Shirley in New York and at Manasquan in New Jersey. The dual US landing points provide geographic diversity on the American end, distributing traffic across two separate coastal entry nodes rather than concentrating it at a single beach head. The Cornish and Breton landings similarly reflect the longstanding preference for the southwest approaches to Europe, where shorter overwater distances and well-established cable corridors reduce both latency and physical risk.

Capacity and Ownership

Apollo is operated by Apollo Submarine Cable System Ltd, which holds responsibility for the system's maintenance and commercial operation. The cable is designed to carry over 3.2 terabits per second per leg — a substantial throughput figure that reflects the engineering standards expected of a major transatlantic system. Construction details have not been documented in available records.

Regional Context

The North Atlantic corridor hosts a dense concentration of high-capacity cables, and Apollo sits within that competitive field as a dedicated transatlantic link with strong geographic coverage at both ends. Its four landing points across three countries give operators and carriers meaningful route flexibility, which is a practical advantage in a corridor where network resilience and path diversity are persistent priorities for carriers moving traffic between Europe and North America.