99 of all internet traffic from this video to your pokemon go account to
your family whatsapp group runs on a hidden network of undersea cables why should you
care because modern life is increasingly dependent on those slinky subaquatic wires
and they get attacked by sharks from time to time how do they work what's the future for them
join us today as we plunge the depths and ask how the internet travels across oceans
according to the authoritative submarine cable map website there are currently 493 active or
actively under construction sub-sea internet cables criss-crossing the globe these range from
the relatively modest 300 kilometer azerbaijan to turkmenistan wire running under the black sea
to the absolutely gargantuan 6600 kilometer maria cable linking virginia beach in the us
with bill bow in northern spain maria weighs the same as 24 blue whales apparently the
firm's laying down this serpentine superhighway worldwide there's now 1.5 million kilometers of
undersea data wires arcadey about how much it all costs but professional estimates indicate
a typical transoceanic cable should set you back between three and four hundred millions of
dollars which seems like a lot because they're not especially thick typically around the girth of a
garden hose and that includes layers of protective thixotropic jelly around the all-important fiber
optic core plus multiple plastic sheaths and copper wiring to power the thing but even so
on average they can ferry an awesome 100 gigabytes per second in data with newer and
forthcoming cables able to transmit 400 gigabytes per second so how does so much data fit down such
slim channels part of the answer is an extremely sophisticated data wrangling technique known as
dense wavelength division multiplexing put simply dense wavelength division multiplexing lets data
providers use more than one wavelength of light to convey information fibre optically instead
several wavelengths are employed simultaneously and stacked creating astonishing data speeds this
happens at buzzing data center-like landing sites at either end of the cable are the cables just
straight forward long wires not quite every 70 to 100 kilometers or so along the seabed cables
are punctuated with so-called repeaters these essentially serve as amplifiers keeping the signal
strength up to par over long distances that's why the cables incorporate copper conductors
by the way carrying up to 10 000 volts of dc to power the repeaters how are the cables late
they're first coiled into vast cylindrical drums on specialized cable laying ships as much as a
year's planning and charting will go into plotting the perfect trans-oceanic route bad locations
for undersea cables include anywhere volcanic or anywhere especially earthquake or mudslide prone
or anywhere heavily trolled by fishermen the cable is spooled out the back of the ship at a
sedate pace of around 10 kilometers an hour if the ship encounters bad weather the captain can decide
whether to break off the cord tie it to a boy and retreat to karma waters when the storm passes the
ship returns to the boy and picks up where it left off accidents and outages on the cables can and do
occur in 2012 hurricane sandy in the u.s knocked out several key transatlantic cables disrupting
networks for hours in 2011 the fukushima earthquake in japan caused similar online
the vast majority of such disruptions however are the result of human carelessness typically
trawler nets or wayward ships anchors cables situated close to the shore are significantly
more at risk from such disruption as such the nearer to lander cable is the more likely it'll
be carefully armor-plated many are even dug into the seabed in long dedicated trenches
carved out using ship-drawn plows awesomely sharks have been spotted nibbling on one of google's
subsea cables get your teeth into this 2014 clip more sinister even than that the us government
has consistently warned of interference in the cables from hostile foreign powers like russia
or china the us government should know all about that whistleblower edward snowden revealed in 2013
how the nsa had no qualms eavesdropping on fiber optic communications the geopolitical implications
of undersea cables are also fascinating last year the australian government intervened to prevent
chinese technology giant huawei from installing a cable connecting australia with the solomon
islands the fear is that china could use the link to gain access to australia's sensitive internal
networks so who actually owns these cables that's an interesting question it's an expensive business
so historically nations or quasi national telecom providers have picked up the bill the world's
biggest owner of cables remains america's a t with a stake in some 230 000 kilometers of undersea
cable the second biggest owner is china telecom frequently cables are owned by groups or consortia
of up to 50 separate owners including tech firms local government agencies and other businesses
and while this model helps spread the initial cost it's less helpful when something goes wrong
and nobody can agree who has to put on a wetsuit and do something about it increasingly big tech
is recognizing its scope for growth is limited by the undersea cable network so over the past
few years the overwhelming majority of investment in undersea cable infrastructure has come from
companies like facebook which currently owns nearly 100 000 kilometers of cables google owns
roughly the same amount amazon has its own massive private network hooking up the online giant's
mighty aws data centers through cables traversing the atlantic pacific and indian oceans plus the
mediterranean and the red sea and the south china sea the tech giants like to frame these
vast environmentally disruptive infrastructure projects a civilization enhancing largesse on
their part but they're also shareholder companies remember who know perfectly well that increasing
the number of human beings online is the only way they can continue to grow hang on a second you're
probably thinking what about starlink isn't our old mate elon about to make the internet
wireless any day now for now cable is by far the cheapest and most efficient means
of eating vast packets of data over incredibly long distances fast even normally bullish musk
says starlink is only aimed at people who don't presently enjoy access to high speed fiber but
who knows how that'll pan out in a decade or two for now the future is very much undersea cables
only this summer google and facebook announced a joint initiative to build an undersea cable
named apricot apricot will link up singapore japan guam the philippines taiwan and indonesia
by the year 2024. the longest subaquatic cable ever a 45 000 kilometer billion dollar monster
called to africa that will link up 33 nations was just bankrolled by a facebook-led consortium what
do you think will mankind's ingenious submarine network one day look as obsolete as the telegraph
let us know in the comments and don't forget to subscribe for more totally wired tech content