Like most, you may have stopped to wonder how the internet works on a fundamental level. Beneath home routers and wireless connections, there’s always a cable that needs to get plugged in somewhere for those to work. It turns out that the internet itself is no different, operating from a collection of 500+ undersea cables spread across the world.
The Internet Cables
Numbering approximately 550 and counting, the first cable was laid in 1850 – the Dover-Calais cable between England and France. The first transatlantic cable quickly followed between Newfoundland, Canada, and Valentia, Ireland. Naturally, have since been replaced due to damage or lack of capacity.
As for what these cables carry, almost all intercontinental internet traffic courses through them. They handle everything, from important government data to business information and modern forms of entertainment that rely on the internet. By default, most websites operate internationally, and most online businesses must if they want to find success.
For websites in on-demand streaming or iGaming, their content is ferried by these cables and cached at servers near you, where you can access them. This means that every time you fire up a streaming service or play slot games for real money, the hundreds of options available to you arrive through the world’s internet cable network.
The mission to wire the world may have started over 150 years ago, but it’s nowhere near done yet. Cables need replacing to keep pace with technology without considering wear and tear damage, natural disasters, and intentional sabotage.
If you ever need to find updates on these cables, TeleGeography is the official resource for providing up-to-date information on these vital connections. They even provide an interactive submarine cable map that lists and labels every cable. Over time, more cables will be added to this map as they are laid out by hyperscalers.
The Hyperscalers
Hyperscalers are entities that fund, build, and own a lot of infrastructure relating to the Internet. The big four are Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon. It’s easy to understand why these tech giants are interested in building and maintaining cables since their main services rely on them.
Hyperscalers don’t just focus on wires – they also build server rooms, create cloud storage networks, and generally push the envelope when storing and transmitting data. In this case, they fund and even own some of the multi-million-dollar cables that span the world’s oceans.
Given their importance, these cables aren’t just managed by tech giants. Countries plan these cables rigorously beforehand, and once they are in place, they represent a geopolitical tie between two nations. In the past, simple things like fishing trawlers have disrupted the world’s connections, to say nothing about the potential for sabotage.
The Future of Undersea Internet Cables
As 5G Wi-Fi continues its rollout, developers and engineers worldwide are doubling on wireless technology. Companies like SpaceX want to take that to its logical extreme with the Starlink network, a constellation of satellites designed to beam internet service down from above. With approximately 5,000 satellites positioned worldwide, widespread satellite internet will be a reality in the future.
However, they won’t replace the world’s internet cables. The cables are here to say because a well-maintained cable is always faster, no matter how sophisticated the wireless tech is. Cables will remain the backbone of the internet for the foreseeable future, processing terabytes of data every second.
Satellite internet is a great complementary technology to the cables we already use. Their primary use case is to bring the internet to isolated areas like houses or campgrounds without infrastructure. At most, a satellite could bring internet to a small island if it’s cheaper than running the cable.
That’s why undersea internet cables aren’t going anywhere soon and are still being built today. As the internet continues its never-ending expansion, developing and maintaining those cables will always be necessary to keep up with our growing data demands.
