Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tonguez" data-source="post: 8538150" data-attributes="member: 1125">[URL unfurl="true"]https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/25/asia/internet-undersea-cables-intl-hnk/index.html[/URL]most people (myself included) arent aware that the Internet is still reliant on a network of giant undersea cablesIn 2012, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/13/world/americas/hurricane-sandy-fast-facts/index.html" target="_blank">Hurricane Sandy</a> slammed into the US East Coast, causing an estimated $71 billion in damage and knocking out several key exchanges where undersea cables linked North America and Europe. "It was a major disruption," Frank Rey, director of global network strategy for Microsoft's Cloud Infrastructure and Operations division, said in a statement."The entire network between North America and Europe was isolated for a number of hours. For us, the storm brought to light a potential challenge in the consolidation of transatlantic cables that all landed in New York and New Jersey."For its newest cable, Marea, Microsoft chose to base its US operation further down the coast in Virginia, away from the cluster of cables to minimize disruption should another massive storm hit New York. But most often when a cable goes down nature is not to blame. There are about 200 such failures each year and the vast majority are caused by humans."Two-thirds of cable failures are caused by accidental human activities, fishing nets and trawling and also ships' anchors," said Tim Stronge, vice-president of research at <a href="https://www2.telegeography.com/submarine-cable-faqs-frequently-asked-questions" target="_blank">TeleGeography</a>, a telecoms market research firm. "The next largest category is natural disaster, mother nature -- sometimes earthquakes but also underwater landslides." A magnitude-7.0 earthquake off the southwest coast off Taiwan <a href="https://www.submarinenetworks.com/news/cables-cut-after-taiwan-earthquake-2006" target="_blank">in 2006</a>, along with aftershocks, cut eight submarine cables which caused internet outages and disruption in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Korea and the Philippines.Stronge said the reason most people are not aware of these failures is because the whole industry is designed with it in mind. Companies that rely heavily on undersea cables spread their data across multiple routes, so that if one goes down, customers are not cut off.</blockquote>

Verification