Special ships lay data cables across the world’s oceans.
Stefan Sauer/picture alliance via Getty Images
The 485 multiterabit-per-second undersea data cables that span the world’s oceans link the globe and maintain the digital realm.
Workers haul part of a fibre optic cable onto the shore at the Kenyan port town of Mombasa.
Stringer/AFP via Getty Images
Fibre optic cables now literally encircle Africa, though some parts of the continent are far better connected than others.
Justin Yau/Sipa US/Alamy Live News
A selection of the best of our coverage of the conflict from the past fortnight.
Top two: Dmitry Medvedev took over from Putin as Russian president in 2008 before handing power back in 2012. He remains closer to the centre of power.
AP Photo/Mikhail Klimentyev, RIA Novosti Kremlin
Russia is threatening to disrupt the world’s undersea data infrastructure. This should be taken seriously.
‘Spy ship’: Russian oceanographic research vessel Admiral Vladimirsky during a military parade off the coast of St.Petersburg in 2020.
Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
A new documentary has tracked a Russian vessel apparently collecting data on energy and communications infrastructure in the North Sea and Baltic.
EPA/Danish Defence Command
Australia has a vast network of undersea cables and pipelines. Bolstering their security must be a priority.
Shutterstock
Undersea cables are made of bundles of glass fibres, each one as thick as a strand of human hair.
An aerial view of heavy ash fall on the Tongan island of Nomuka.
GettyImages
Given their vital role in communications, the global economy and security, the rules governing undersea cables need overhauling.
AP/Planet Labs PBC
Future events could damage the critical portion of the undersea network which links to Australia.
Cable coming ashore from a ship.
Coral Sea Cable System
As tensions grow between China and the US, vital internet links for Pacific island nations face uncertainty.
The process of laying internet cables on the sea floor is particularly sensitive at the coastlines.
Gail Johnson/Shutterstock.com
Comparing the locations of key internet data centers and cable routes with maps of expected sea-level rise suggests it’s time to shore up internet connections in the face of a changing climate.
Cables crisscross the oceans carrying your internet info.
Telegeography Submarine Cable Map
The cloud lies under the ocean. Thin cables about as big around as a garden hose traverse the Earth’s oceans carrying all our intercontinental internet data.