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

FA
RI
CE
DAN
IC E
Hib
Anchorage er
nia

Alexandria, Wednesday
ect
onn

Fibre-optic submarine
At
la nd C lant
Green ic -14
TAT

cable systems Kodiak Kenai

AC-
1
A ship’s anchor accidentally
In-service
cuts two cables, SeaMeWe4
and FLAG Europe-Asia,
Planned
reducing internet capacity

Al
No

as
rth

ka
in Asia by 75%
Al St
Dublin

U
AC ask ar

ni
Taiwan, 2006

te
SA aU

d
Ea
las nit

st
ka ed tic
–O We tlan
re st ia A
Damaged go
n ern
Hib 4
TAT
-1
1 Brussels Site of the previous biggest
AC-
Cables with a minimum capacity cable disaster, when
of 5 giga bytes a second under Seattle
construction or working Hiber
nia At
lantic

ic
Odessa under-ocean landslide cut
Atlant
nine cables between Taiwan
HSCS
TGN-
year-end 2007 VSNL TGN-Pacific
VSNL
Marseille

Ge
VSNL TGN-Western Europe
PC-1
Apollo /13

or
and the Philippines, disabling
UNITED

gi
ic BSFOCS
Southern Cross TAT-12 N-Atlant

a-
Ru
VSNL TGN-Pacific TG
Russia–Japan VSNL

s sia
FA-1 /AC-2 Caucasus Onli

FLAG Europe-Asia
net access for weeks
Cable Network TPC 5

SeaMeWe-3
ne Poti–Var

Sea
JAPAN
w na
Yello
China-U.S.
New York
STATES JAPAN

M
Med
AC-1

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AL
Japan-U.S.

PA
14 GWEN

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Lisbon

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PACIFIC OCEAN Pusan

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Algiers

er
m
Los Angeles

ud
a
Gibraltar
MENA
EAC

PC-1

C
PC-1
Shanghai Shanghai

MA

C
AS
China-U.S. China-U.S.

/W
Kuwait City
CHINA

T-3
Kuwait-Iran

SA
ATLANTIC OCEAN
Japan-U
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MAC
n-U.S

Am
CHINA
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Gulf of Miami
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th

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ac
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Hong Kong LA
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a
N Intra-Asi

be

SeaM
VSNL TG Honolulu

Ne
SAS-1

AFRICA

t
Fibralink

eWe-
Cayman-Jamaica

eWe-
Muscat
SMPR-1
Mumbai

4
San Juan

3
TP

APCN
Kingston
C5

GC
Guam
-Philip

N
pines
GN aMeWe- APCN-2

TPC 5 PAC Antilles- MCN

AAG LCON
Manila /LA
N Crossing
Dakar FA
Chennai Manila
sia

FLAG

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SAC

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ob
pe-A

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M
SA

eN
ay
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1
Europe
Guam Guam
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Djibouti
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LA FLAG
sia

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eN N
Arabian
FLAG

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et SeaMeWe-4

ss
tra
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Caracas Accra
In

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Sea Colombo
C2Ccn

Panamá

ss
er

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Porto Novo
AP

ica

Cro
AA
CN

s-I
n

uth
Cc

Bharat Lanka sia

N
G

ern
pe-A
VS

C2

So
Cable System Euro

-2
Abidjan
th
FLAG
Cayenne

ntis
TIS

Sou
EAC

3
eWe-

la
At
WARF SeaM
u
aag
Dumai-Melaka
Cable System
Mogadishu D hir

Singapore
MIC-1 SAO TOME & PRINCIPE Libreville Singapore

y
SS
APCN

EA

S
AM
TE
Matrix Cable System

Dar es Salaam

SAC/LA
SAm-1
Jakarta Jakarta

SEA
Luanda

N
INDIAN OCEAN

FE
JA

JA
SA
SU

SU
Australia-Japan
RA

RA
US

US
2
Glo ntis-

SA /LAN t
e
SA beN
Suva Suva

la
ASIA

At

et

SAT-3/WASC
1
C
m-
beN
aii
aw
Port Headland Port Headland

Glo
–H
Noumea Noumea
a
rali

Tels
tra
Aust
Rio de Janeiro Asia has an enormous
SeaM

SeaM
number of internet users:
AUSTRALIA

SAC/LA
eWe-

eWe-
SAm-1
AUSTRALIA
-1
a
Maputo
3

3
n
wa
501 million of the world’s

N
nd ss
Go Cro
ern
uth
So
1.3 billion users. And it’s
Perth growing by 882% per year Perth

-2
tis
lan

N
LA
Sydney Sydney

At
Cape Town

C/

1
m-
SA
Southern

SA
Cross

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

60m
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
of the bandwidth is purchased, but only SeaMeWe-3 39,000 km total trans-Atlantic cable capacity has
India Galvanised
29% is used soared to over 7 trillion bps armour wires
Southern Cross 30,500 km
Tar-soaked
China-US 30,476 km nylon yarn

12m
Pakistan
Capacity in terabytes
a second
What makes up
“used capacity”?
FLAG Europe-Asia 28,000 km Optical fibres

6m 4.7m
Silicon gel
South America-1 25,000 km
Egypt SaudiArabia Total capacity
27%
7.1 tbps
1.7m
UAE
Private networks,
owned by companies

0.8m
Kuwait

0.3m
Qatar
Purchased capacity
5.7 tbps 72%
Internet % 1%
Telephone
calls Estimated international
bandwidth usage by country
0.2m Buffering material
Sã

Used capacity (gbps) (plastic/steel)

Bahrain
1,000+
2.1 tbps 200 - 999
Nylon yarn bedding

Ultra-high strength
50 - 199 steel wires
1 - 49 Capacity as of December 2007 (gbps)
500 500 50 10 Copper sheath
1
SOURCE: TELEGEOGRAPHY.COM SUBMARINE CABLE MAP 2008. INTERNET STATISTICS FROM INTERNETWORLDSTATS.COM