The Undersea Network

Abstract

Undersea fiber-optic cables are critical infrastructures that support our global network society. They transport 99 percent of all transoceanic digital communications, including phone calls, text and e-mail messages, websites, digital images and video, and even some television (cumulatively, over thirty trillion bits per second as of 2010). 1 It is submarine systems, rather than satellites, that carry most of the Internet across the oceans. Cables drive international business: they facilitate the expansion of multinational corporations, enable the outsourcing of operations, and transmit the high-speed financial transactions that connect the world's economies. Stephen Malphrus, staff director at the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, has stated that if the cable networks are disrupted, "the financial services sector does not 'grind to a halt,' rather it snaps to a halt." 2 As a result, the reliability of undersea cables has been deemed "absolutely essential" for the functioning of governments and the enforcement of national security. 3 Militaries use the cables to manage long-range weapons tests and remote battlefield operations. Undersea networks also make possible new distri

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