Governments around the world must look beyond land and sea to preserve the internet connectivity on which we all depend. Undersea internet cables are at risk. That puts internet access for everyone in Europe and beyond at risk, Jeff Huggins writes.
ADVERTISEMENTThere are more than 500 undersea cables worldwide. Often connecting continents, from Europe to Australasia, they provide internet connectivity to billions of people, many of whom have no idea that they even exist.
They are one of those components of our global infrastructure that is fundamental to our way of life and yet largely unappreciated. Unappreciated, that is, until the internet is disrupted.
And that looks like an increasing possibility. Over the last few months, Houthi rebels in the Middle East have been alleged to have sabotaged four major communication cables, belonging to the AAE-1, Seacom, EIG and TGN systems, at a stretch that runs between Saudi Arabia and Djibouti.
Hundreds of disruption incidents a year, conflict or no conflict
The first of these cables is particularly important because it connects Asia, Europe and Africa, snaking nearly 16,000 miles from Hong Kong to the south of France.
As Fortune reported earlier this year, the "Red Sea incident" — an attack and sinking of the Rubymar cargo ship off Yemen, believed to have caused the damage to the subsea internet cables — shows that internet cables, which are essential to our way of life, are indeed vulnerable.
And yet it would be a mistake to think that the vulnerability of these cables has to do only with the potential for sabotage or accidental damage in conditions of conflict.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organisation and think tank analysing global issues, has thrown light on the proneness of subsea cables — described as the "soft underbelly of the global economy" — to disruption.
Its findings have been echoed and amplified by the Atlantic Council and in a US Congressional research report.
Though work is currently underway on over 70 new cables that will cross some 300,000 kilometres of seabed, there are around 200 incidents of disruption to cables every year — conflict or no conflict.
Satellite links are no match
We cannot stop earthquakes and current abrasions from happening. Nor can we bring an end to fishing or shipping were that desirable.
So we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma: we need internet connectivity, and yet the means by which we get it are perennially at risk — more so, as the world becomes more volatile and more connected.
One solution is satellite internet, the most well-known provider of which is Elon Musk’s Starlink.
But even though this provides coverage to some 70 countries, it’s no match for underwater cables in terms of the volume of data it can transmit from one point to another on Earth, and its limitations are imposed on it by physics of RF downlinks from space to ground.
Moreover, it still relies on some physical infrastructure for data routing. In other words, it shares some of the vulnerabilities of undersea cabling.
With the proliferation of inter-satellite optical communications links, data is moving at volume and speed in space between satellites.
However, moving that data from continent to continent or point to point on the ground is bottlenecked by the physics of RF downlinks from the satellites to the ground.
Meanwhile, optical tech is advancing
What can transmit data at comparable speeds to subsea internet cables are optical ground stations (OGS).
A network of these is capable of sending and receiving information at a rate that’s more than 1,000 times higher than that of the radio-frequency (RF) connections that satellite internet depends on.
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Because OGSs rely on point-to-point laser communication, they’re also incredibly resilient. It’s very hard to intercept such a narrow, focused beam of light connecting Earth to satellites, and the tiny possibility of interception is very easy to defend against.
And because they make use of a mesh satellite network, they have no geographical limitations, as subsea cables do. You can set up an OGS in a part of the world that is secure and accessible.
Finally, the historic problem that has plagued laser communication — that certain conditions, such as atmospheric turbulence, can degrade the quality of the link — has been overcome in recent years, thanks to the development in Europe, a world leader in photonics, of innovative techniques that "shape light".
Let's look beyond land and sea
Governments around the world must look beyond land and sea to preserve the internet connectivity on which we all depend.
We may hope for peace; but if the last few years are anything to go by, we can reasonably expect geopolitical volatility and the need for investment in technology that increases security to grow.
ADVERTISEMENTMeanwhile, the impact of disruption to the flow of data around the world will increase in magnitude.
Undersea internet cables are at risk. That puts internet access for everyone in Europe and beyond at risk.
We need to provide a layer of resilience to the global internet to support them. Luckily, the technology exists.
Jeff Huggins is President of Cailabs US.
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