INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Despite what Wi-Fi and mobile data might lead people to believe, the internet is less of a nebulus cloud of data in the air above us, and
and underground cabling, supplemented in some regions by satellite links.Around 380 undersea cables carry over 99.5% of all transoceanic
data, running for 750,000 miles across the ocean floor
These fiber optic wires connect the massive data centers supporting cloud behemoths such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google
relatively little new cable was laid, but available capacity was slowly exhausted
A renewed demand for bandwidth, caused by the rapid growth of connected devices, is now propelling a new wave of cable initiatives.The first
submarine cable to use fiber optics was TAT-8, which went live in 1988
It had two operational fiber pairs and one backup pair, and reached speeds of up to 280MB per second.The current fastest cable (MAREA, owned
times faster than TAT-8.However, despite exponential growth in quantity and capacity, whole countries can be plunged into blackout if just
one cable is damaged or snapped, with ramifications for household users and businesses alike.Undersea cables are usually run through areas
of deep ocean to minimize the possibility of damage
But the deep sea is a harsh environment, and cables laid at extreme depth can be challenging to access if repairs are required.According to
telecoms research firm Telegeography, there are over 100 cable breaks per year
Many of these go unnoticed in developed regions with extensive redundancies, but the infrastructure keeping us online is still far more
fragile than any of us realize.FragilityIn many developed countries, particularly in the West and Asia, internet access is more or less
African nation of Mauritania was taken offline for two whole days after the Africa Coast to Europe cable (owned by a syndicate of telecoms
companies) was severed by a fishing trawler
Nine other countries in the region also experienced outages at the hands of the wayward fisherman.In the former Soviet bloc nation of
Georgia, an elderly woman scavenging for copper to sell as scrap cut through an underground cable with her spade, causing neighbouring
Armenia to lose connection for five hours
last year after the submarine Falcon cable was severed, with its repair made even more complex by the ongoing civil war in the
country.Stories about sharks biting down on cables in the Pacific and causing intermittent outages have also become common in recent years
Various articles have suggested that the creatures mistake electromagnetic waves for bioelectric currents produced by schools of fish,
TheIndianSubcontinent Pro via email.Sharks or no, the list of incidents involving damage to critical cabling goes on and on
All it takes is a misplaced anchor for millions to lose their invaluable connection.On the cusp of blackoutIt might seem staggering that
whole nations can so easily be taken offline, even if only temporarily
But not all countries enjoy the luxury of extensive redundancies in the event a cable is damaged.Japan is served by a total of 26 submarine
cables, the UK is supported by 54 cables, and the US by a whopping 91, but a significant proportion of the world relies on just a single
The largest of these (by population) include Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Togo and Sierra Leone.If you include countries supported by just two
cables (a further 11 nations), the total number of people relying on a tenuous connection rises to almost 450 million, or 5.57% of the
redundancy in some locations
overwhelmed if an entire nation attempted to connect at once, making them effectively useless in the absence of the cable system.Fail to
prepare, prepare to failReliable internet connection was once viewed as a luxury, but loss of internet can now have severe and wide-reaching
consequences, both for individual businesses and entire economies.Businesses in regions that suffer from poor internet penetration and
intermittent connection have likely acclimatized, leaning more heavily on offline ways of working
However, in regions utterly dependent on connection, companies are often ill equipped to handle downtime.Research carried out by UK-based
ISP Beaming found that British businesses lost almost 60 million hours of working time to internet outages in 2018.On average, UK firms
experienced two major outages and 16 hours of downtime each
influence goings-on in the world of undersea cabling, there are measures businesses can take to limit downtime, and the damage it
appropriate resiliency via a failover service (e.g
future could revolve around smarter network software that can work around hardware infrastructure failures
projects.Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook all hold stakes in high-profile submarine cable networks
Between them, these companies own or lease more than half of undersea bandwidth
Google alone owns four cable networks: Curie, Dunant, Equiano and Junior.These firms need to satisfy a rapidly accelerating customer demand
for bandwidth, driven by the adoption of mobile, the proliferation of IoT devices, the transition to 5G, and the volume of data produced by
Future cables may have even more
pair is capable of carrying four million high-definition videos simultaneously
of data able to pass through our seas will soon reach unimaginable levels.Underwater geopoliticsDespite this potential, massive submarine
cabling projects also face a diverse range of obstacles, including budget, logistics, and dense bureaucracy
Perhaps chief among them, though, is geopolitical conflict, as demonstrated by the ongoing trade war between the US and China.Google and
Facebook recently filed to activate the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) between the US, the Philippines and Taiwan
The project is an excellent case-study in how geopolitics can stand in the way of progress.The network, announced in 2016, was originally
billed as the first to connect the US and Hong Kong
However, sections running to Hong Kong and China will remain inactive amid security concerns and ongoing conflict between Washington and
Beijing.PLCN boasts 12,800km of cabling and an estimated capacity of 120TB per second, which would make it the highest-capacity
trans-Pacific route, bringing lower latency and greater bandwidth to the APAC region.Google and Facebook might be the most high-profile
stakeholders in PLCN, but much of its fiber optics belong to an organization called Pacific Light Data Communication
The sale of this company to a Beijing-based private broadband provider, Dr Peng Telecom - Media Group, in 2017 triggered concerns that have
dogged the initiative ever since.(Image credit: Shuterstock / Christoph Burgstedt)Dr Peng itself is not state-owned, but has strong links
with Huawei, the mobile giant accused by the US government of posing a significant security threat.Google and Facebook have requested
permission to activate only the self-owned portions of the undersea cable network (running between the US, the Philippines and Taiwan),
effectively cutting Pacific Light Data Communication from the project.When the project was first announced, Google spoke of ambitions to
provide enough capacity for Hong Kong to have 80 million concurrent HD video conferences with Los Angeles; in the end, geopolitics put paid
to this particular ambition.Given the critical importance of connection to nearly all aspects of life and business, the idea that submarine
cabling could become the target of terror attacks or sabotage efforts has also been debated.Following the Mauritania outage in 2018, Stuart
interfering with deep-sea cables.The same event saw Conservative MP Rishi Sunak (since appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer) refer to the
cable system has not been a frequent target of attacks
Cables are much more frequently disrupted by anchors and nets, accidentally, than anything else
connection remains at the mercy of chance incidents.The ability to improve internet penetration, speed and reliability in countries with
users is on the up, especially in African nations, but service reliability is an issue (acutely felt by many) that still needs to be
addressed.Fr8VgpPF6hUsxwEAKQhdpk.jpg?#
