About 900,000 miles of submarine cables lie across our ocean floor, the fibers of which are often as thin as a human hair. Together, these cables transmit 95% of all international data, and form the physical web that makes the Internet possible.
The longest of these, named 2Africa, stretches 28,000 miles along the coasts of the UK, Portugal and West Africa, with the line now extending to the Middle East and India.
At the center of each such string are actual glass fibers. Protecting these consists of layers of steel wire, covered with copper wire, covered with polymer fabric (for final waterproofing). Then the whole gathering just sits on the sea floor.
“For the longest time, there were about 100 to 120 cable cuts a year, almost all of which were accidental. There would be some geological event or a shipping ship dropping its anchor into the water, which would land on a wire and cut it,” says writer Samantha Subramaniam, 44, who was previously a journalist for HT’s business paper, Mint.
Today, countries have started patrolling their deep-sea lines. (Incidentally, India has 17, which are regulated by the Indian government and owned and maintained by communications companies like Tata and Reliance, which frequently collaborate with global tech giants like Meta and Alphabet.)
Subramaniam’s new book traces such relationships around the world. The Web Beneath the Waves explores elements of risk, geopolitical tensions and corporate power grabs. “In recent years, various countries have been suspected of deliberately undermining their rivals,” he says.
A former cricket journalist, Subramaniam has previously written: The role of fish in coastal cultures across India (Following the Fish; 2010); War-ravaged Sri Lanka and its people (This Divided Island; 2014); and British-Indian evolutionary biologist JBS Haldane (a major character; 2019).
He is the acting managing editor of the recently launched Equator magazine (Click herefor the Wknd story on that unusual offering), and lives in London with his wife Padma Ghosh, a science communicator, and their eight-month-old son.
Subramanian says, “I have become aware of the importance of finding things that one loves and being deeply committed to them… It’s a strange, exciting and sometimes scary world, and there is so much to learn.”
Excerpts from an interview.
, You have written about fish, geopolitics, war-torn Sri Lanka. How did this book come on the undersea cable?
In 2011, I came across a 40,000-word essay by science-fiction writer Neal Stephenson, published in Wired magazine in 1996. At that early time, he decided to track the progress of the longest undersea cable ever laid in the world. (The fiber-optic link around the globe, or FLAG, runs 17,400 miles from North America through the UK and India to Japan.)
Stephenson managed to make FLAG the most exciting thing in the world. He stayed with me. Then, in 2022, a volcano erupts off the coast of Tonga, cutting its only international data cable. I remember reading about it and thinking: Here’s a country that has suddenly kind of lost access to the world. I wondered what he was like.
When I presented the book, 26 years had passed since Stephenson’s essay and I was surprised at how the underlying framework had changed. While I was researching the book, the cables became even more of a geopolitical flashpoint. Countries were worried that rivals would break their ties. They began to regard these as national security installations, and rightly so, as the impact of the cuts on the economy alone could be tremendous. This gave the book a kind of urgency. I spent about two and a half years reading, traveling, and interviewing, and I became, as Neal Stephenson called it, a “hacker tourist.”
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, What kind of people did you meet? What needs to be done to keep this deep sea world intact and running?
Strangely, most of the characters in this world are men. I spoke to captains of repair ships whose crews have struggled to carry out their very delicate work – mending the broken ends of fiberglass cables – amid storms and rough weather.
I spoke to people who manage cable depots, which are coastal facilities that store, maintain and deploy critical fiberoptic lines, and are located near ports.
It is a very closed industry, with its own myths and urban legends. There’s a guy who’s been working in this field, for various companies, for so long – over 50 years – that there are two fiber pairs in the cable system named after him: Rick and Perry. (That man, Rick Perry, currently works with Vodafone.)
,
, So, we know these things are there. We have some realization of how important they are. What did you learn that you think most people don’t know, and should know?
One thing that people don’t think about is that the Internet is a very physical thing.
We know there are data centers somewhere, but because the phone is in our hands and because we use Wi-Fi, we think that maybe the data bounces off satellites in space or goes to some tower and then comes to us.
We don’t realize that 95% of international data traffic goes through undersea cables. Stop to consider that, and one’s concept of the Internet really changes, because it suddenly becomes something that is extremely territorial and unsafe.
I was also surprised to learn how much this infrastructure has become politicized.
For example, two out of every three new cables laid today are laid by one of the four US tech giants: Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon. This says a lot about corporate control over data and privacy.
There is also cause for concern that, if a West African country or a small Asian country is underserved by the Internet and needs cable to land on its shores, such companies have a huge advantage.
,
, In the book, you also describe gray-zone warfare, “in which ghost ships cut other countries’ cables”…
In recent years, some countries have been suspected of deliberately cutting rivals’ deep sea cables. For example, Taiwan suspects China of cutting its cables several times. The Baltic states think Russia can do this.
Britain is so concerned about its maritime infrastructure that it has deployed two ships to patrol its territorial waters around the clock.
It is called gray-zone warfare because it is very easy to cause this type of damage spontaneously. Anyone could send a fishing boat to break contact and no one would be able to say whether it was intentional or not.
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, It doesn’t help that the places are made public…
For 150 years, ever since the first telegraph cable was laid, the location and coordinates have been public, because if we are to protect these links from accidents, it is best for ships and fishing boats to know where they are.
While working on this book, I asked some government officials whether they would reconsider this policy of publishing coordinates, and they said that, for the first time, they were considering it.
,
, Talking about geopolitics, how is the map of these cables changing?
Well, look at the map of telegraph cables in the late 19th century and the map of fiberoptic cables today, and you’ll see that they are surprisingly similar.
There is a huge trade going on from Western Europe to the United States. Another big loop is going from the UK to South Africa and India. This is how cables were laid during the colonial period.
Telegraph lines were laid to ensure that the colonial powers could control these remote areas. Those routes are still being mapped.
This is basically a reflection of the fact that, in 150 years, the distribution of wealth and power around the world has not changed that much. Except maybe China. The only real radical change to the map is the increased number of cables in China and parts of South-East Asia.
,
, How does technology like Starlink fit into all this?
It’s tempting to think of satellites as a viable alternative to cable. You know, we have Starlink, and we have all these other constellations of satellites in orbit. Maybe they can take some of the burden, you can believe. But this is not a long-term solution just because our data consumption has increased.
Therefore it is impossible to think of these satellites as a complete and permanent alternative.
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, If we can ask a personal question who is Samantha Subramaniam when he is not writing? How do you like to spend your free time?
Like everyone else, I also have some core interests. I try to go to as many Test matches as possible in the English summer. I also have a long-term teacher of Hindustani vocal music. I’ve studied Carnatic music in the past, and that’s basically the only music I listen to.
I have become aware of the importance of continually seeking those things and being deeply committed to them. It is a very beneficial and mentally refreshing process. It teaches you a lot, but on an even deeper level, it teaches you a lot about yourself.
It’s a strange, exciting, and sometimes scary world we live in. And there’s a lot to learn.
