The internet’s undersea world The vast majority of the world’s communications are not carried by satellites but an altogether older technology: cables under the earth’s oceans. As a ship accidentally wipes out Asia’s net access, this map shows how we rely on collections of wires of less than 10cm diameter to link us all together FARICE DANICE Anchorage Hibernia Atlantic Greenland Connect Fibre-optic submarine TAT-14 Alexandria, Wednesday Kodiak Kenai cable systems AC-1 A ship’s anchor accidentally In-service cuts two cables, SeaMeWe4 and FLAG Europe-Asia, Alaska United East NorthStar reducing internet capacity Planned Alaska United West ACS Alaska–Oregon Dublin in Asia by 75% Taiwan, 2006 Damaged Hibernia Atlantic TAT-14 Brussels Site of the previous biggest AC-1 Cables with a minimum capacity cable disaster, when Seattle of 5 giga bytes a second under Hibernia Atlantic Odessa under-ocean landslide cut construction or working HSCS VSNL TGN-Pacific VSNL TGN-Atlantic Georgia-Russia year-end 2007 PC-1 nine cables between Taiwan Apollo Marseille Southern Cross TAT-12/13 BSFOCS Russia–Japan VSNL TGN-Pacific VSNL TGN-Atlantic and the Philippines, disabling SeaMeWe-4 Caucasus Online Poti–Varna Cable Network TPC 5 FA-1 UNITED Med Cable Yellow/AC-2 China-U.S. ALPAL-2 net access for weeks Japan-U.S. AC-1 New York GWEN TPE TAT-14 SeaMeWe-3 VMSCS JAPAN STATES Europe VSNL TGN-Western JAPAN FA-1 Europe-Asia FLAG Lisbon Gemini–Bermuda Apollo Athens Atlas Offshore MedNautilus TAT-12/1 KELTRA-2 TPE KJCN TE North Pusan PACIFIC OCEAN Columbus-III Algiers Los Angeles MENA EAC Gibraltar PC-1 PC-1 MAC Shanghai China-U.S. China-U.S. Shanghai Kuwait-Iran SAT-3/WASC Japan-U.S. Americas-II MAC Kuwait City SAm-1 CHINA Japan-U.S. ATLANTIC OCEAN APCN-2 FOG Qatar-U.A.E. TPC 5 C2Ccn PAC Gulf of Miami BICS CHINA EAC AAG Southern Cross Doha Taipei TW1 Southern Cross C2Ccn Mexico Bahamas 2 GlobeNet ARCOS SeaMeWe-4 Taipei SeaMeWe-3 INDIA Hong Kong FLAG/Reach North Asia Loop Abu Dhabi Hong Kong VSNL TGN Intra-Asia SAS-1 Honolulu Cayman-Jamaica Fibralink SMPR-1 TPC 5 Muscat Mumbai APCN San Juan GCN AFRICA Guam-Philippines Kingston AAG TPC 5 PAC Antilles- MCN Crossing GlobeNet Maya-1 FLAG FALCON APCN-2 AAG SAC/LAN Dakar Chennai Manila SAm-1 i2icn Manila CFX-1 SAC/LAN EAC TGN TIC GlobeNet FLAG Europe-Asia Guam Djibouti SeaMeWe-4 Guam FLAG Europe-Asia SeaMeWe-3 Arabian APCN Americas-II AAG Caracas Accra Colombo C2Ccn Panamá Porto Novo Sea Bharat Lanka VSNL TGN Intra-Asia C2Ccn Southern Cross TIS Cable System FLAG Europe-Asia Southern Cross Abidjan EAC Cayenne Atlantis-2 WARF SeaMeWe-3 Dumai-Melaka Dhiraagu Cable System Mogadishu Singapore MIC-1 SAO TOME & PRINCIPE Libreville Singapore APCN EASSy TEAMS Matrix Cable System SAC/LAN SAm-1 Dar es Salaam Jakarta Luanda SEA Jakarta JASURAUS JASURAUS SAFE INDIAN OCEAN Australia-Japan Atlantis-2 Suva GlobeNet Suva SAC/LAN SAm-1 GlobeNet ASIA Port Headland Noumea Port Headland Noumea SeaMeWe-3 Rio de Janeiro SAT-3/WASC SeaMeWe-3 Telstra Australia–Hawaii Asia has an enormous SAC/LAN SAm-1 number of internet users: Maputo AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA Gondwana-1 501 million of the world’s Southern Cross 1.3 billion users. And it’s Perth growing by 882% per year Perth Atlantis-2 Sydney Southern Cross SAC/LAN Cape Town Sydney SAm-1 Auckland Auckland NEW NEW ZEALAND ZEALAND Internet users affected by the World cable capacity The longest submarine cables The world’s cables in bandwidth Cross-section of a cable Alexandria accident Submarine cable operators light The SeaMeWe-3 system from Norden in The first intercontinental telephony Cables of this strength are typically 69 The main countries affected (turn on) capacity on their systems to Germany to Keoje, South Korea connects submarine cable system, TAT-1, mm in diameter and weigh over 10,000 in Wednesday’s event sell bandwidth to other carriers. Carriers 32 different countries with 39 landing connected North America to Europe in kilograms a kilometer. In deeper buy extra capacity, mainly to hold in points 1958 and had an initial capacity of waters, lighter and less insulated reserve. On the trans-Atlantic route 80% 640,000 bytes per second. Since then, cables are used 60m SeaMeWe-3 39,000 km of the bandwidth is purchased, but only total trans-Atlantic cable capacity has Galvanised India 29% is used soared to over 7 trillion bps Southern Cross 30,500 km armour wires Tar-soaked China-US 30,476 km nylon yarn 12m Capacity in terabytes What makes up FLAG Europe-Asia 28,000 km Optical fibres Pakistan a second “used capacity”? Silicon gel 6m 4.7m South America-1 25,000 km Egypt SaudiArabia Total capacity 27% 7.1 tbps Private networks, 1.7m owned by companies UAE 0.8m Purchased capacity Kuwait 72% 5.7 tbps Internet % 1% 0.3m Telephone Qatar calls Estimated international bandwidth usage by country Sã Buffering material 0.2m Used capacity (gbps) (plastic/steel) Bahrain 2.1 tbps 1,000+ Nylon yarn bedding 200 - 999 Ultra-high strength 50 - 199 steel wires 1 - 49 Capacity as of December 2007 (gbps) Copper sheath 1 500 500 50 10 SOURCE: TELEGEOGRAPHY.COM SUBMARINE CABLE MAP 2008. INTERNET STATISTICS FROM INTERNETWORLDSTATS.COM.