FEATURE
THE AGE OF SUBMARINE CABLES BECOMING SENTIENT IS HERE BY RAJ JAYAWARDENA AND MARK ENGLUND
I
f you’ve ever wondered why your downloads are a dismal drag, or your streaming service is stuttering, cast your mind to the sea. Underneath the water, nestled on the seafloor or just under the seabed, lie vast networks of fiber-optic cables —thin strands of glass—that carry almost all the world’s internet traffic. In fact the world’s IT and commerce are fully dependant on them, with 99% of daily internet traffic criss-crosses the globe at high speed through 600+ cables on the ocean floor, powering more than US$7 billion of transactions every minute. It’s the biggest financial metropolis you’ve never seen, right under your boogie board.
A FRAGILE ECOSYSTEM
Alarmingly, every second day, a subsea cable suffers a critical break. Depending on the size of the snap, it could plunge your screen, website or livelihood into debilitating downtime.
90 SUBMARINE TELECOMS FORUM MAGAZINE
Although buried up to one metre under the sea floor, submarine cables are relatively easy to break. Not surprising, when you think about it: • Strong water currents traverse the cables constantly, sweeping the sand and exposing cables to potential hazards • Tectonic activity and underwater landslides, rarely major incidents, are daily reminders that our planet is in perpetual motion • Anchor drags as ships come close to shore, deliver a quick and dirty cut as the culprit glides in • Fishing net trawls as fishermen go about their daily business inadvertently sever the cable. More recently and somewhat alarmingly, we have experienced the looming threat of intentional disruption to these cables from bad actors, state sanctioned or private. The cost of repairing these cable breaks is escalating to as much US$2-3m to repair a major cut to a submarine cable system.