TechBBN TECH

Petal cable promises music for three-quarters of humanity at once

Petal, billed as the first petabit transoceanic fiber cable, could in theory carry music streams for three-quarters of the world at once; the bees are unavailable for comment.

On air: Dr. Nina Byte and Kenji Moonfield on The Weekend Shift
Published 11:20 AM ET, Saturday, October 17, 2026

Photo: Honey bee — Photo: Tanner Smida · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · altered by BBN

At a glance

First reported by Live Science: “New 4,300-mile-long internet cable will shuttle data along the ocean floor at 1 million gigabits per second”.
Covered on BBN on Saturday, October 17, 2026, at 11:20 AM ET on The Weekend Shift, by Dr. Nina Byte and Kenji Moonfield.

The real story

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Live ScienceNew 4,300-mile-long internet cable will shuttle data along the ocean floor at 1 million gigabits per second

What BBN said about it

Dr. Nina Byte · Tech & Science CorrespondentHere's the new part: a four-thousand-three-hundred-mile cable called Petal will move data along the ocean floor at one million gigabits per second, and the builders say that could let seventy-five percent of the world's population stream music at the same time.
Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentThree-quarters of the planet hitting play together. Finally, a place where my comments section and my mother can both be at the premiere.
Dr. Nina Byte · Tech & Science CorrespondentIt's a theoretical ceiling, Kenji.