Your internet is bathing in the world's oceans

May 15, 2015 7:51 AM

Sharks are trying to kill your cat gifs and other facts about the Internet's undersea cables.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (11 comments total)

Sending and receiving signals to and from space takes time. Meanwhile, researchers have developed optical fibers that can transmit information at 99.7% the speed of light.

Oh, good. That's much faster than radio waves propagate.
posted by Ickster at 7:58 AM on May 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

(And yeah, I actually get the point they're trying to make. It's just not made at all well.)
posted by Ickster at 8:00 AM on May 15, 2015

Sharks, man. *shakes fist*
posted by goatdog at 8:58 AM on May 15, 2015

Besides the terrorist with snippers mentioned, you have to assume that the submarine powers have contingency plans for snipping cables strategically in the event of hostilities.
posted by beagle at 9:01 AM on May 15, 2015

I don't want facts. I prefer to imagine that my internet cables were laid by Tony Stark in a super suit.
posted by puddledork at 9:36 AM on May 15, 2015

Obligatory link to Mother Earth, Motherboard.
posted by PenDevil at 10:42 AM on May 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

Fortunately, the cables have not yet been found by sharks with frikken lasers.
posted by localroger at 10:45 AM on May 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Just as we try to make sharks to be the sympathetic victim of human fear-mongering, they go after my selfies!
posted by MrGuilt at 11:47 AM on May 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

A beautiful map of undersea cables.
posted by bitmage at 2:56 PM on May 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

Submarine cables are just one of those things I can happily lose hours clicking around and reading up on. Fascinating stuff. Can't not link submarinecablemap.com here.
posted by corvine at 4:54 PM on May 15, 2015

Oh, actually Greg's Cable Map was the one I meant to link. More info on bandwidth here and more detail on landing points.
posted by corvine at 4:59 PM on May 15, 2015 [1 favorite]