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Undersea cables keep us connected

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Workers lay submarine internet cable (© Boris Horvat/AFP/Getty Images)
Workers in southern France are installing an undersea internet cable that connects countries as far as Singapore. (© Boris Horvat/AFP/Getty Images)

Five billion people will log on to the Internet this year, with most never realizing that their financial transactions, news updates and chats with friends are thanks to a network of undersea cables.

An estimated 1.4 million kilometers of cables under the oceans provide internet on every continent except Antarctica, according to TeleGeography, a Washington consulting firm. That’s enough cable to wrap around the equator 35 times.

Most of these cables are no larger than a garden hose and transmit data through bundles of fiber optic cables as thin as a human hair. Information travels as light pulses and is powered over long distances by electrical devices.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the US is working with partner countries and the private sector to build secure undersea cables that deliver reliable internet to people around the world.

An official from Google Cloud, part of Alphabet Incorporated, said the company is among those working with the U.S. government and other countries to roll out undersea cables in “a tremendous feat of partnership, physics and engineering.”

Submarine cables bring more people online and boost learning, trade and development. Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica says new cables announced in January to connect Fiji, Guam and French Polynesia will “lead the way for economic transformation through digital connectivity.”

TeleGeography estimates that there are 574 active or planned submarine cables carrying the Internet around the world. Among the submarine cables in the implementation phase are cables that will connect to:

  • South America and the Indo-Pacific through a Google project and the Chilean government’s plan to complete this by 2026, the so-called Humboldt cable.

  • People in the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and others to faster, more reliable internet on Google’s Pacific Connect cable network. The project is partly funded by governments including the US, Australia and Japan.

  • Twelve countries from Singapore to France, thanks to the SEA-ME-WE 6 cable network installed by the American supplier SubCom from New Hampshire.

“We are investing in the installation and operation of secure infrastructure to connect every region of the world,” Blinken said.

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