Ocean City, MD, United States

Ocean City, MD: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Ocean City is a resort city on the Atlantic coast of Maryland, in Worcester County on the eastern seaboard of the United States. Its coastal position along the Atlantic Ocean makes it a natural geographic candidate for transatlantic submarine cable infrastructure. One submarine cable is scheduled to land at Ocean City, connecting the United States directly to Ireland and establishing a transatlantic corridor on the mid-Atlantic coast.

That single cable, Fastnet, is planned to run between the United States and Ireland, giving Ocean City a direct link to Western Europe. With a ready-for-service date of 2028, Fastnet is still in the draft stage, meaning Ocean City is an emerging rather than established submarine cable landing point. Once operational, it will place this Maryland city on the map of active transatlantic cable infrastructure.

Cables Landing at Ocean City, MD

Fastnet is the sole submarine cable planned to land at Ocean City. Scheduled for an RFS date of 2028 and currently at draft status, Fastnet connects the United States and Ireland. Its transatlantic route spans the North Atlantic, linking the eastern seaboard of the United States with the western edge of Europe. No cable length or capacity specifications are available at this stage of planning.

Regional Context

Within the United States, Ocean City hosts one of the smaller cable presences among active landing points. Established hubs such as Boca Raton, FL and San Juan, PR each host eight cables, while Myrtle Beach, SC, Hermosa Beach, CA, Kapolei, HI, and Grover Beach, CA each land between four and five cables. Ocean City, with its single planned cable, ranks in the top 69% of the 167 landing points in the United States by cable count, reflecting the breadth and geographic spread of submarine cable infrastructure across the country.

Network Role

Once Fastnet becomes operational, Ocean City will function as a single-cable transatlantic terminus, providing a direct submarine connection between the United States and Ireland. This positions Ocean City as a point of entry for transatlantic data traffic on the mid-Atlantic portion of the US East Coast, a stretch of coastline that includes relatively few dedicated submarine cable landings compared to areas further south such as Myrtle Beach, SC.

In the broader submarine cable graph of the United States, Ocean City represents a new node on the Atlantic coast, adding geographic diversity to the country's transatlantic cable network by distributing landing infrastructure across a greater range of coastal locations.