Le Vasa

Le Vasa: what this cable is

Le Vasa is a new submarine fiber-optic cable system for American Samoa. The project agreement was signed on 15 January 2026 in Pago Pago by Governor Pulaalii Nikolao Pula and Google's vice president of global network infrastructure, Brian Quigley; the project was officially launched in March 2026. Le Vasa brings the territory into Google's Pacific Connect initiative.

The name "Le Vasa" means "the ocean / the vast sea" in Samoan and is framed as a symbol of the project's significance for the wider Pacific region.

The key idea: Le Vasa is not a standalone trans-Pacific trunk but a national branch that connects American Samoa to Google's larger Bulikula system, part of the Central Pacific Connect architecture. The cable is owned and operated by the territory's state-owned telecom, ASTCA (American Samoa TeleCommunications Authority).

Geography and landing points

Le Vasa consists of a single segment connecting a cable landing station in Tafuna, on Tutuila island, American Samoa, with branching unit BU 1A on the Bulikula trunk. The Tafuna station is already a key node for the territory: it hosts ASTCA's infrastructure, through which the existing Hawaiki cable also lands.

Through Bulikula and the related Central Pacific Connect systems, Le Vasa's traffic gains an exit toward Fiji and French Polynesia, as well as to the Guam hub. This is a fundamentally new direction for American Samoa, whose existing submarine routes have historically run mainly north, toward Hawaii and the US West Coast.

How Le Vasa connects to Bulikula and Central Pacific Connect

Bulikula is one of Google's new cables under Central Pacific Connect. In January 2024 Google announced two intra-Pacific systems: Bulikula, linking Guam with Fiji, and Halaihai, linking Guam with French Polynesia. Google has described Central Pacific Connect as a "ring" architecture between Guam, Fiji, and French Polynesia, with pre-placed branching units so that Pacific island nations and territories can connect to the trunk with their own branches.

Le Vasa fits exactly into this logic: American Samoa does not build a huge trunk of its own, but obtains a sovereign branch into Google's trunk system, connecting to Bulikula through dedicated branching unit BU 1A.

Architecture and ownership

Le Vasa follows a "trunk-and-branch" model: there is a large Google backbone (Bulikula) and a national branch (Le Vasa) owned and operated by the local side. In practice this means:

• Google builds and owns the large intra-Pacific Bulikula infrastructure, providing high capacity and connectivity for the Guam–Fiji–French Polynesia ring.
• American Samoa, through ASTCA, gets its own Le Vasa cable, which connects to that trunk and gives the territory a nationally controlled entry point into the global backbone.

This approach is cheaper and more realistic for a small island territory than building a full trans-Pacific route on its own, and it gives the territory its own physical infrastructure and control over critical connectivity rather than simply leasing capacity from an external operator.

Technical specifications

• Configuration: 4 fiber pairs.
• Initial capacity: about 12 Tbps, according to ASTCA.
• Topology: a single segment, Tafuna (American Samoa) to BU 1A on the Bulikula system.
• Project cost: about 45 million US dollars, of which 15 million are funded through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
• Funding/delivery partner: AP Telecom; technology partner: Google; owner and operator: ASTCA.

Context: American Samoa is no longer a "single-cable island"

Unlike some neighboring territories, American Samoa came to Le Vasa not from scratch. It already has two prior anchors:

• Hawaiki (in service since 2018) is a trans-Pacific system of about 15,000 km and roughly 67 Tbps, connecting Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa, Hawaii, and the US West Coast. ASTCA owns the roughly 400 km branch to this trunk and the cable landing station in Tafuna.
• ASH (American Samoa–Hawaii Cable, 2009) and the related SAS segment (Samoa–American Samoa) is an earlier system, jointly owned by Fiji's ATH Group and the American Samoa Government, which gave the territory its first serious international fiber channel and a link to Samoa.

So Le Vasa matters not as a "first redundancy" but as a qualitative expansion of topology: a new, geographically different route.

Why Le Vasa matters: route diversity, not just capacity

The main value of Le Vasa is not absolute Tbps but path diversity. American Samoa's existing routes (Hawaiki, ASH) run mainly along the Hawaii / US-mainland axis. Le Vasa opens a fundamentally different direction, south and west, to Google's Guam–Fiji–French Polynesia ring. For resilience this matters more than simply adding capacity:

• it lowers the risk of correlated failure: an event on the Hawaii/mainland axis no longer has to take down the territory's entire international connectivity;
• it adds an alternative upstream through Google's infrastructure, potentially with a different set of peers, routes, and cloud points of presence;
• a backup route lowers the risk of prolonged outages for banks, government services, healthcare, education, and emergency communications;
• ASTCA directly ties the project to digital resilience, telehealth, remote education, and digital entrepreneurship.

Funding and geopolitics

Le Vasa is part of a larger picture: the US and Google are strengthening connectivity for Pacific island states and territories amid competition for influence in the region. Funding involving the American Rescue Plan Act and the partnership with Google place the project within the same Pacific Connect initiative that includes Bulikula, Halaihai, and branches for other territories, including IOKWE for the Marshall Islands. This is about not only capacity but a politically more resilient digital architecture in the Pacific.

What is known and what is not yet disclosed

Publicly known:

• Le Vasa is a branch system for American Samoa, connecting the territory to Google Bulikula via BU 1A;
• the landing is the Tafuna cable station; owner and operator is ASTCA;
• 4 fiber pairs, initial capacity around 12 Tbps;
• cost about 45 million dollars, 15 million of it from ARPA, with AP Telecom as partner;
• the agreement was signed on 15 January 2026, with the project launched in March 2026.

Not yet disclosed, or only partly disclosed: the exact length of the Le Vasa branch segment; the final wet plant / cable ship / SLTE suppliers; a detailed route map; and the exact RFS / ready-for-service date of the completed system.

Technically: what effect to expect

• Path diversity. This is the main gain: a third international route on a new geographic direction (toward the Guam–Fiji–French Polynesia ring), not a duplicate of the existing Hawaii axis.
• Capacity headroom. 4 fiber pairs and an initial 12 Tbps give substantial headroom for cloud services, video, remote education, and telemedicine.
• Latency and routing. Connecting to a Google trunk potentially offers new, shorter paths to some global clouds and CDNs, and greater stability through a choice of routes.
• Operational resilience. What matters is not only Tbps but independent operational chains: different cables, different landing arrangements, different repair scenarios, and different upstreams.

Why this matters for GeoCables / monitoring weak points

Le Vasa is an example of a cable whose value lies not in its length but in how it changes the topology of risk. Before Le Vasa, American Samoa's international connectivity relied mainly on the Hawaii/mainland axis (Hawaiki, ASH). After Le Vasa there is a second, geographically independent vector through Google's ring in the central Pacific:

Before: American Samoa -> Hawaiki / ASH -> Hawaii / US West Coast -> Global Internet After: American Samoa -> Hawaiki / ASH -> Hawaii / US West Coast -> Global Internet American Samoa -> Le Vasa -> Bulikula / Central Pacific Connect -> Guam / Fiji / French Polynesia -> broader Google backbone

For monitoring this means it is worth tracking not only cable status but also:

• changes in BGP paths out of American Samoa and the appearance of new upstream via Google / Pacific Connect;
• the split of traffic between the Hawaii axis and the new route via Bulikula;
• latency Tafuna / Pago Pago to Guam, Fiji, French Polynesia, Hawaii, and the US West Coast;
• correlation between Hawaiki / ASH degradation and traffic shifting onto Le Vasa;
• changes in packet loss / jitter during maintenance windows and storms;
• the appearance of new CDN / Google Global Cache / Cloud edge routes.

Short conclusion

Le Vasa is a new, geographically independent submarine path for American Samoa and its entry into Google's Pacific Connect architecture via the Bulikula system. The most interesting thing about Le Vasa is not the initial 12 Tbps but the topological meaning: a territory previously tied to the Hawaii/mainland axis gains a second connectivity vector to Google's central-Pacific ring, qualitatively changing its risk map and resilience.

Sources

• ASTCA / American Samoa Government — Le Vasa announcement and launch
• Telecompaper, Samoa News, Pasquines — agreement and launch details
• Submarine Networks — Bulikula, Halaihai, Central Pacific Connect; ASH/SAS
• Samoa News, SubTel Forum — Hawaiki, ASTCA, the Hawaiki/ASH/ASTCA alliance