The fact that we have internet at home or at work is the result of a titanic task that began more than a century ago.
More than 1,000 Millions of meters of submarine cable have been installed since the 19th century to transfer data over great distances.
And the current situation in Tonga, the island nation that has been cut off from communication after the explosion of an underwater volcano, makes it clear how vital this technology is.
From the telegraph to the internet
The first cables between continents began to be installed end of the 19th century for the telegraph network.
The first of these great veins of communication between continents was built to connect the United Kingdom with the United States.
Initially the first cables were made of copper to operate the telegraph service, but in the age of the internet, in the decade of 1980, fiber optic cables began to be installed.
The laying of the tubes is carried out with specialized boats that slowly unfold enormous coils of cables that are dropped into the Ocean bottom.
These Cables contain multiple repeaters, which increase the signal along the cable approximately every 30 km.
These underwater highways are capable of transmitting from order of 3,640 gigabits per second in each fiber optic strand, the equivalent of the content of 102 DVDs every second.
And each cable contains in turn several pairs of fiber strands to increase their transmission capacity.
A map of the world’s submarine cables
TeleGeography, an American telecommunications consultancy, created the Submarine Cable Map portal, an interactive map of all the submarine cables deployed in the world with data on the proprietary companies such as Goo gle, Facebook, Amazon, Verizon or AT&T.
There are more than 383 submarine cables that run 1.3 million km around the world.
On the map it can be seen that a key highway is located in the Atlantic Ocean, connecting Europe and North America.
The great highway in the Pacific, on the other hand, connects the United States with Japan, China and other Asian countries.
From Miami, several cables reach Central and South America.
In the case of Mexico, for example, most of the cables start from the east of the country and cross the Gulf of Mexico to Florida and from there connect with Central and South America.
Vulnerable and vital
Fiber optics in submarine cables it is protected by several layers with materials such as steel, aluminum and polyethylene. Even so, there have been cases of accidental damage from boat anchors, large-scale fishing activities and even shark bites.
They are also vulnerable to natural disasters, especially earthquakes. In 2006, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off the southwestern coast of Taiwan.
The earthquake and its aftershocks caused the cut of eight submarine cables, which severely affected internet services in several Asian and financial transactions, especially in the foreign exchange market.
The submarine cables are the line that keeps the modern connected world going.
They can transmit much more information at much lower cost than satellites, and they are behind almost everything we do on the internet and with our cell phones (from calls to text messages or software downloads).
These cables are not only essential for communications. They can also acquire strategic political importance.
In the United Kingdom, for example, Defense Minister Ben Wallace announced last year that the British navy, the Royal Navy, will build a new surveillance to protect the country’s underwater internet cables.
Surveillance will include autonomous and remotely operated underwater drones to search for foreign interference. Wallace told the BBC that Russia has a “deep interest” in the cables and the UK may be “exposed” without proper protection.
Tonga incommunicado
The importance of submarine cables for communications was clearly evidenced after the massive explosion of a submarine volcano in the Pacific on 15 January.
The main island of Tonga was covered in ash and there are reports that its western coast was devastated. Until 80,000 people there could be affected.
The eruption was so strong that it could be heard in New Zealand, about 2.383 kilometers from Tonga.
More hours Later, Tonga’s telephone and internet lines were interrupted due to a damaged submarine cable, causing the 105,000 residents of the islands were almost unreachable.
“We are receiving incomplete information, but it seems that the submarine cable has been cut,” he told the AFP news agency Dean Veverka, network director of the Southern Cross Cable Network company.
Repairing damaged submarine cables is an expensive task and can take weeks.
Special boats are required to lift the cable from the ocean floor and carry out repairs on the surface, removing the damaged section and re-splicing the rest.
“It could take up to two weeks to repair the cable. The closest cable-laying ship is in Port Moresby,” Veverska noted, referring to the capital of Papua New Guinea, more than 4, km from Tonga.
Southern Cross is providing technical assistance to the company Tonga Cable Limited, owner of the cable from 872 km linking Tonga with Fiji, and from there connects to the rest of the world, according to the AFP agency.
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