Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

A subsea cable is like a long piece of string. Except the world's cables total about 1.5 million kilometers. Anything shaped like that is inherently indefensible. The Big Huff and Puff is that if we place sensors on or near the cables, presto, problem solved. Not a chance. All it takes is a technologically sophisticated and patient adversary to send out unmanned drones to locate the cables in deep sea where they lie exposed on the ocean's floor. Record the coordinates or drop a homing beacon. When the war is about to go from cold to hot, release underwater drones with charges to attach themselves to these cables and blow them up.  Sensors are of limited value because no country or military alliance has sufficient vessels to station them close enough to every point of possible attack. What is the point of a warning if it is too late to avert the attack? The invention of radar did not stop air strikes or render air power useless. Satellites can give 30 minutes warning of a nuclea...

It is standard practice to bury subsea cables in shallow waters. This generally means the ocean or sea lying above the continental shelf. The shelf is really just that part of the continent that is submerged under water during the warm periods between the earth's recurring ice ages. During interglacial periods like now the shelves remain submerged and during each ice age the shelves become dry land as the sea levels fall due to less precipitation. Precipitation declines as the earth becomes colder and water is locked up in snow, ice, and glaciers on dry land. Indeed, during the last ice age the oceans were about 130 meters lower than today's levels and the continental shelves were dry land. In general, the continental shelves range from 100 to 200 meters below the water surface. At the continental shelf's edge the depths plunge down a steep slope to the bottom of the ocean. The purpose of burying is to protect a fibre optic cable from its most ferocious predators and enemi...