There’s a good chance that the bits and bytes that make up this video have traveled
to you through a fiber optic submarine cable running along the ocean floor. These cables
are part of the infrastructure that transmits almost all internet data around the world.
And as everyone and everything becomes increasingly reliant on the internet to function, who owns,
builds and ultimately controls this network will be more critical than ever.
Internet adaptation has steadily increased over the last couple of decades. Despite its
creation in the late 1960s, the internet was only widely adopted in 1989 after the invention
of the world wide web, revolutionizing the way we communicate.
Before the rise of mobile devices, internet access was largely limited to expensive and
inconvenient desktop computers. But today, it’s an indispensable part of our lives.
So, here’s how it works.
When you send an email, tweet or post a photo online, that data is sent through cables or
more commonly radio waves to a router or cell phone tower. From there, these signals are
sent through a series of fiber optic cables in the form of pulses of light to an internet
exchange, which acts like a sorting office. Most data from users in a local area network
pass through these hubs in order to connect to other networks. For networks and data centers
on the other side of the world, this journey will likely traverse the seabed.
These submarine cables crisscross the ocean before arriving at an anonymous looking building
like this. It's called a landing station and it’s the end of the line for the submarine
cable before the data begins its journey overland again.
To lay a cable across any ocean is a significant feat but it’s not a modern innovation — it’s
been happening for more than 160 years.
As soon as the cable is passed under the bows the crew take charge of it.
The invention and widespread use of the electric telegraph – which could carry the dots and
dashes of morse code – led to the first transatlantic telegraph cable between the
U.S. and Britain in 1858.
By the early 20th century, the dominance of the telegraph was replaced by telephone technology
that allowed voices to be carried over wires through electrical signals. Soon, submarine
cables were carrying telephone traffic, which were laid worldwide, mostly by telecommunication
monopolies such as the British Post Office and the American Telephone and Telegraph, or AT&T.
Amidst the dotcom bubble in the 1990s, international consortiums began to invest in submarine cables too.
35km of fiber optics connects this one dealing room.
These private companies sold or leased the bandwidth to other commercial entities which
needed more capacity.
The last ten years have seen a rapid expansion of the network to keep up with the demand
for internet services. As of early 2020, there were 406 submarine cables that totaled around
750,000 miles in length, enough to go around the world 30 times. Some lines are relatively
short, like the 81-mile CeltixConnect cable between Ireland and the United Kingdom, while
others, such as the Asia America Gateway cable, which runs across the Pacific Ocean, is 12,427 miles long.
Packed within these cables are fibre optic strands that transmit data at speeds of more
than 100,000 miles/second, and they carry more than 95% of international data. That’s
because undersea cables are still the fastest, most reliable and least costly way to transmit
information over vast distances.
While the infrastructure on land and underwater is vulnerable to the occasional curious rat
or shark, the biggest threat to submarine cables is human activity. In 2011, internet
access to the whole of Armenia was severed after an elderly Georgian woman damaged an
underground cable while scavenging for copper, while in 2016, a ship dragging its anchor
in the English Channel cut three undersea internet cables.
In some circumstances, though, satellites are needed to deliver the internet. Very remote
areas don’t have the population density to make an economic case for cabling, so satellites
are the preferred option. For security reasons, many governments and their military also rely
on satellites. Google’s parent company Alphabet has also set their sights on internet balloons
to beam the internet to unconnected parts of the world.
But even as the web has grown, it has also narrowed in some respects. The rise of the
American tech giants in the 21st century meant that Silicon Valley had a reason to invest
in these strategic assets.
Today, content providers such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft own or lease more than
half of the global undersea bandwidth. As of 2020, Google has invested in 16 cables
that traverse most of the world, Facebook has stakes in 12 that cross both the Pacific
and Atlantic Oceans, while Microsoft and Amazon have funded five cables each.
As the tech giants expand their global network of data centers, these cables will be essential
to meet the demand for their services such as cloud computing and streaming, which require
minimal delay and lots of bandwidth.
But the ownership of these submarine cables is drawing scrutiny from governments due to
security concerns. Some analysts believe it’s the latest frontier in the geopolitical battle
between China and the U.S.
In 2018, Australia prevented Chinese tech company Huawei from laying a cable between
the country and the Solomon Islands over concerns that it would give the Chinese government
access to its networks.
In June, a U.S. national security panel objected to an 8,000-mile cable being built by Facebook
and Google connecting Hong Kong and the U.S., arguing that it would offer ‘unprecedented
opportunities’ for Chinese government espionage by capturing internet traffic.
Many analysts believe that Huawei’s growing involvement in the construction and repair
of submarine cables worldwide could even allow China to disrupt internet links between nations,
echoing strategies employed during World War I. Then, the United Kingdom’s dominance
of the international telegraph infrastructure allowed it to cut off almost all of Germany’s
communication with the outside world.
Likewise, the U.S. had an espionage program in the 1970s to tap Russian undersea communication cables.
Having multiple submarine cables covering the same route acts as a buffer in the event
a cable is damaged. However, building more cables won’t necessarily improve connectivity
or internet speeds for everyone.
For instance, despite having the second largest online market globally, half of the Indian
population still don’t have internet access. Africa is also a significantly underserviced
region, with 871 million people lacking access to the internet.
Reasons include the lack of data centers, last-mile infrastructure and unaffordable
costs for end-users that won’t be solved by increased undersea bandwidth.
However, as these markets open up and more people come online, demand for faster internet
speeds will continue to rise. It’s unlikely, then, that the submarine cable race between
the big tech companies is going to slow down. With billions of dollars of revenue at stake,
more money will continue to be invested in these expensive subsea projects.
Hi guys, thanks for watching our video. If you're wondering why we're standing on this beach
well under the water over there is a submarine cable that runs from the west coast of England
to the east coast of America, about 3,500 miles away. We'll see you next time.