If you travel this undersea network, you will be surprised at the beginning and you will be surprised at the end. It is an extraordinary journey
Surfacing
by Nicole Starosielski, Erik Loyer, and Shane Brennan
Undersea fiber-optic cables are critical infrastructures that support our global network society. They carry 99% of all transoceanic digital communications, including:
phone calls,text messages,email,websites,digital images and video,and even some television.
It is cable systems, not satellites, that transport most of the Internet around the world. The Undersea Network documents “the physicality of the virtual.” It is based on real geography and and real politics. The Cloud is in the Ocean!
Click Here to Read and See (Sea) More
Undersea Internet Cables Are Surprisingly Vulnerable
So, the Russians are at it again, snooping around the undersea communications cables that connect the continents. These fiber optic cables carry 99 percent of all transoceanic digital communication—phone calls, emails, web pages, you name it. They’re the reason you can Skype your colleague in Sydney or text with your friend in Mumbai. They’re essential infrastructure for the global economy. It’s no wonder, as The New York Times reported this week, that US military officials are not at all comfortable with Russian subs and spy ships “aggressively operating” in their vicinity.
Despite the importance of this undersea network, most people never give it a thought until something goes wrong, or seems likely to. Nicole Starosielski wants to change that. Starosielski, a media scholar at New York University, spent six years traveling the globe to study the history of the cable network and the cultural, political, and environmental forces that have shaped it. Her work also highlights the vulnerability of this system.
“We usually think of the internet as distributed,” Starosielski says. Because of the built-in redundancies, an attack at a given point in the terrestrial network is unlikely to bring the whole thing down. Not so under the sea. “I think people would be surprised to know that there are a little over 200 systems that carry all of the internet traffic across the ocean, and these are by and large concentrated in very few areas. The cables end up getting funneled through these narrow pressure points all around the globe.”
Starosielski’s book The Undersea Network, published earlier this year, examines some of the reasons for this. They range from politics to undersea topography to seismic risks. A companion website lets you explore the Pacific cable network with interactive maps, histories of the various cables, and photos of the sometimes spooky, sometimes mundane places where they come ashore.
Animated Map of the Internet
Animated map reveals the 550,000 miles of cable hidden under the ocean that power the internet
Produced by Alex Kuzoian
TE SubCom – Repeatered Undersea Cable Networks
Go back 80 years :
Offshore Windfarm. Underwater cables required to connect to Windmills. (Sound effects unnecessary):
These videos are made for industry. But we tourists can come along for the ride and learn an awful lot. Energy (electricity) generated by Offshore Windfarms can generate a great deal of power. You can also stop the video at intervals to get a better view of the windfarm, when the camera moves too fast.
Anholt Offshore Wind Farm 2014 (English)
An awesome site – a new industry. New Environmental problems.
Offshore wind farm London Array, UK
In case you did not think this was an entirely new industry.