Branding the invisible: Big Tech, naming submarine cables, and the politics of infrastructure (in)visibility

Submarine cables have historically been invisible: buried, technical and obscured by conventions such as security and language including naming practises that prioritised function over storytelling. However, as Big Tech companies like Google have emerged as major cable investors, increasingly shifting from consortium to sole or private ownership, they have disrupted the cable industry in many ways. This paper demonstrates this disruption through the naming practises adopted by Google for its privately-owned cables. It argues that names are not neutral descriptors but tools that selectively make infrastructure visible and culturally significant which transforms cables from technical objects to cultural products. This allows for cables to be branded and marketed – in the case of Google, as part of a unified brand story. Through storytelling potentials embedded within names (including gender, inclusion, indigenous references), Google signals its progressive credentials and tells a story that connects its different product and services. Thus, nomenclature allows for the company to imbue infrastructure with values while obscuring risks and impact of Google’s cable ownership. Drawing on postcolonial perspectives, infrastructure studies, marketing communication, and political economy of communication, this paper examines how language shapes perception of submarine cables including its ownership, control, risks, power, and public relations.