Do Sharks Eat The Internet?

How much of your business Internet traffic goes offshore?

How does it get to and from Australia?

Here is some Information about the Internet’s Undersea Cables.

Australia’s submarine communications cables carry the bulk of our international voice and data traffic and are a vital component of our national infrastructure, linking Australia with other countries.

Submarine cables are vulnerable to damage and breakage, which can cause serious consequences for the flow of information to and from Australia. Cable damage can cause data loss, significant delays, and severe financial loss to businesses, cable owners and individuals who rely on communication links with other countries.

(Map updated 1st February 2019)

Currently, 99% of the data traffic that is crossing oceans is carried by undersea cables. The reliability of submarine cables is high, especially when multiple paths are available in the event of a cable break.

As a result of these cables' cost and usefulness, they are highly valued not only by the corporations building and operating them for profit, but also by national governments. For instance, the Australian government considers its submarine cable systems to be "vital to the national economy". Accordingly, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has created protection zones that restrict activities that could potentially damage cables linking Australia to the rest of the world. The ACMA also regulates all projects to install new submarine cables.

What is a ‘Protection Zone’.

These are geographical areas of the coastal waters of Australia where the cables come up out of the ocean onto land.

While Australia has hundreds ISP’s and several international fibre optic links, we only have 4 Landing Stations for these fibre cables. The locations are not secret, in-fact the locations are in the public domain, specifically for the marine industry so that fishing boats don’t accidentally drop an anchor on them! 

And here they are;

• Perth 
  
• North Sydney 
  
• South Sydney 
  
• Maroochydore (built but inactive, no details as yet).

Antarctica is the only continent yet to be reached by a submarine telecommunications cable.

In total, they are hundreds of thousands of kilometres long and can be as deep as Everest Is tall.

There’s disagreement as to why, exactly, sharks like gnawing on submarine communications cables. Maybe it has something to do with electromagnetic fields. Maybe they’re just curious. Maybe they’re trying to disrupt our communications infrastructure before mounting a land-based assault. The point remains that sharks are chewing on the Internet, and sometimes damage it.

For the geeks reading this, have a look at these grouse sites;

https://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/

https://submarine-cable-map-2018.telegeography.com/

https://dev.networkatlas.org/

References;

• Wikipedia
• Mentalfloss
• ACMA
• Above websites.