The Internet is in a sense an abstract layer that runs our physical world, but it is important to remember that it is also physical because it is connected by cables.
Some of these directions are on water, connecting continents. At the moment this is a working solution for transmitting a large amount of information around the world. But there is one drawback: faulty cables.
If one undersea cable is damaged, tens of thousands of people could temporarily die without internet. However, if hypothetically they all failed, the world would fall into chaos: trading exchanges would cease to function, banks and governments would be unable to examine payments between different ones, ATMs would stop dispensing cash, and people would lose access to their favorite online services.
Short description
How do submarine cables work?
The most important problem of underwater research
How can a submarine cable be damaged?
How to repair submarine cables
When replacing with a submarine cable
How do submarine cables work?
Underwater Computing Map 2024.
The first undersea transatlantic cables appeared 170 years ago, long before the Internet. They were then used for telegraphy; the first message from Great Britain to the United States took 16 hours to transmit.
The first undersea internet cable was launched in 1989. Currently, 574 cables are read around the world, and their total length is 1.4 million km.
Modern submarine cables use fiber optic technology. The optical fibers themselves are extremely thin, about the size of a human hair.
These fibers are coated in multiple layers and provide protection that add thickness to the cable. However, in reality, some submarine cables are not much thicker than a garden hose. Additional additional armor is used near the shore to increase protection.
A diver inspects a damaged internet cable.
Most often the cables simply remain on the seabed. Closer to the shore, in addition to external protection, the cables are buried under the seabed, so they are never visible.
Of course, the installation does not happen anywhere. This means we maintain the site as safe as possible, taking into account wind speeds, fishing nets and tectonic plate movements. On average, planning a departure for a year.
Example of a seabed profile.
Undersea cables are laid between places where there is something “critical to communication”. Therefore, many cables connect the United States with other continents, but there is not a single cable in Antarctica.
The capacity of the new MAREA cable reaches 224 Tbit/s. Typically, an operator’s network is designed in such a way that if one cable is damaged, the load is redistributed to others. But there are exceptions, for example, when two points are connected by one cable.
Most submarine telecom operators. But among them there is also a small part of the dimensions of Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta (banned in Russia and recognized as extremist). Big tech companies have started distributing cables because the volume of traffic on their services matches that of regular carriers.
The cost of producing and laying the cable depends on the cable itself, its length, installation location and operating conditions. Price tags of $250-350 million are normal in this area..
The cable is custom-made, then it is loaded onto the ship, after which the crew heads out to sea and begins work. This may take several months. The ship travels at 10 km/h and slows down near the shore to bury the cable underwater using an underwater plow.
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The most important problem of underwater research
Failure of Internet cables for water supply usually occurs. On average, every year there are 200 different incidents that result in cable damage.
Most often this happens due to human factors in the network, for example when ships snag a wire with an anchor or it ends up in fishing spots. Such cases account for 2/3 of all emergency situations.
An earthquake can also damage the cable. The cable itself rarely fails; he expected a minimum of 25 years of service.
Fish do not touch wires, despite a common myth.
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How can a submarine cable be damaged?
Rubimar
The last significant case where a ship could damage a cable occurred in February 2024.
On February 18, Rubimar, Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired a missile at the cargo ship Rubimar in the Red Sea. The Houthis deny any involvement, blaming the US and British navies.
But according to Wired, the missile was launched by all the same Houthis. She damaged the 171-meter-long ship, which was anchored, causing it to sink.
After the sinking, the wreckage of the ship along with the anchor dragged along the seabed for about 55 km, after which it finally sank. At that moment, the ship’s anchor damaged three cables (there are more than 20 of them in the Red Sea). The anchor either cut or bent the cables very badly. What exactly happened to them will become known only after a visual inspection.
While Rubimar was drifting, the cables were damaged:
👉 Seacom/Tata 15 thousand kilometers long, connecting East Africa and India
👉 AAE-1, 25 thousand kilometers long, connects Europe with East Asia
👉 EIG quarter 15 thousand kilometers connecting India and Great Britain
The damage led to problems with the Internet in eastern countries and South Asia. According to Hong Kong telecommunications company HGC Global Communications, the outage affected 25% of traffic between Asia and Europe.
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How to repair submarine cables
Damaged Internet cables are repaired with the help of the ship that laid them. According to the SubTel Forum, there are 77 cable-laying vessels being studied around the world, but only 22 of them are being repaired. Most often, repairs are additional work. This is due to the fact that laying new results brings in much more money.
The Japanese vessel Ocean Link is engaged in repairing measurements on an ongoing basis. It is equipped with a special drum motor that stretches and extracts the cable during repairs. It has a cable control room that controls the tension of the cable and manages all operations and connections with it. It also has three compartments for moving a cable 4.5 thousand kilometers long.
There are not enough workers in this area. Many people are put off by long trips away from home, unpredictable schedules and, ironically, very poor internet.
Typically, repairs are determined by which cable owner first reports a problem.. After dispatching this product, it is moved to the site and, if weather conditions permit, a team will arrive for repairs.
In short, the main task is that engineers must cut the cable at the bottom (most often the wire is broken), lift it to the surface, then lift the other end to the surface, connect them together with a new cable and lower it back into the water. It is impossible to lift the cable without cutting it because the force of attraction and the weight of the wires is too great.
Repairs are always complicated by the fact that sometimes you have to work at very great depths. Ocean Link split cable at a depth of 6200 meters.
During repairs, the team tries to use as little cable as possible. The ship has stocks of samples of various types, but when they run out, you will have to wait six months until a new spare cable is installed and brought on board.
Cable recovery can take several days or several months. It all depends on the extent of the damage, the impact and the strength of the seabed.
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When replacing with a submarine cable
Unknown. This is unlikely to happen by chance in the near future. The shortcomings associated with reliability have long been learned to be corrected. Now this is not a very serious problem.
Much more importantly, submarine cables carry measurable terabits in seconds, while the throughput through satellite is a few Gbps at most. In addition, despite their high cost, submarine cables are still better than a satellite Internet network.
So it turns out that while humanity is not thinking about new ways to deliver a large flow of data, and they have not yet been invented, new submarine cables continue to be laid all over the world.
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Source: Iphones RU
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
