More than 99% of international data exchange travels through submarine telecommunications cables, according to the International Telecommunication Union. Satellites matter, but most traffic crossing oceans still moves through fiber on the seafloor.

A Business Insider report published October 12 says SubCom, based in Newington, New Hampshire, is the only American company capable of both manufacturing complete long-haul subsea telecom cable systems and laying them at sea.

That claim is narrower than saying SubCom is the only U.S. company making any type of undersea cable. The distinction is the ability to build and deploy a complete submarine telecommunications system. SubCom says it has built more than 200 underwater systems and became the first company to deploy 1 million kilometers of subsea cable in 2025.

TeleGeography estimates more than 1.5 million kilometers of submarine cable were in service globally in early 2026. Its current map tracks 607 in-service systems and another 102 planned.

The manufacturing bottleneck fits a broader trend BitcoinVersus has covered in data-center cabling, 1.6T Ethernet, and AT&T and Corning’s U.S. fiber expansion: cloud and AI growth ultimately depends on physical networks that still have to be manufactured, installed and maintained.