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UNDER THE SEA: The New Era of Telecommunications and Power Cables, and What It Means
By Evan Anderson Why Read: This week's issue covers the complexity and criticality of our massive network of global undersea cables. From communication to, now, the ability to transmit electricity long-distance, we cover the reasons these cables are of key importance to the global economy and the ways in which they are vulnerable. - ERA _______ Of all the marvelous achievements of modern science the electric telegraph is transcendentally the greatest and most serviceable to mankind. [. . .] The whole earth will be belted with the electric current, palpitating with human thoughts and emotions. [. . .] How potent a power, then, is the telegraphic destined to become in the civilization of the world! This binds together by a vital cord all the nations of the earth. It is impossible that old prejudices and hostilities should longer exist, while such an instrument has been created for an exchange of thought between all the nations of the earth. - Charles F. Briggs and Augustus Maverick, The Story of The Telegraph, and a History of the Great Atlantic Cable (1858)
If the world's 223 international undersea cable systems were to suddenly disappear, only a minuscule amount of this traffic would be backed up by satellite, and the Internet would effectively be split between continents. - Nicole Starosielski, The Undersea Network
One of the most underreported (including in the pages of the SNS Global Report) topics in modern global business is the vast network of cables that connects us all. Over 99% of internet traffic flies, not through space to satellites high above us, but along the increasingly sophisticated cables laid on our ocean floors. No connection, then, is more universally important to the global economy than the cables beneath the waves. This system had humble beginnings. Upon the completion of the first intercontinental telegraph line - between Ireland and Newfoundland - on August 16, 1858, a simple message was successfully conveyed from Queen Victoria to US President James Buchanan. While that line failed within weeks, the cables that followed performed better. An entirely new industry had been born. This web of interconnection growing around the globe enabled the kinds of business, trade, and military communications required to sustain massive and organized coordination. The British Empire, with its All-Red Line network, was able to run efficiently in the late 1800s and early 1900s in part due to this key technology.
Source: Wikimedia Commons Soon surpassed by the capabilities of telephone and radio, the telegram has become a thing of the past. But as telephones have shifted to the internet, and the internet has become ubiquitous and increasingly vital to the global economy, the connections between citizens, countries, and companies have only grown. Without these connections, global trade would cease. Without them, modern militaries would halt in disarray. Without them, I, sitting in an office in the Pacific Northwest, would not be able to send this publication to a great many of you this week ("Hello Tokyo Mumbai London Adelaide Berlin Hong Kong Johannesburg STOP This is Seattle STOP"). This week, we will explore the modern version of our system of cables in all its complex glory: what it promises, who owns it, who runs it, and - these days - who threatens it.
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