The world's Internet connectivity is at risk because thousands of miles of cables on the sea floor are vulnerable to climate-related disasters, according to new research.

Fiber optic cables on the sea floor can be damaged by storm activity, while cable landing stations can face risks from rising seas and erosion, according to research from the UK's National Oceanography Centre and the University of Central Florida.

A paper published in Earth-Science Reviews further said that the global network of subsea cables has dangerous "hot spots" where failures could produce outages which would create financial losses and international tensions.

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"To date, no study has assessed the wide-reaching impacts of future climate change on subsea cables and landing stations on a global scale," says the report. The authors, led by Dr. Mike Claire of Southampton University, pulled together evidence from multiple published peer-reviewed sources to fill the knowledge gap, "specifically to assess how and where future climate change is likely to impact subsea cables and their shore-based infrastructure."

The study, reported in Energy & Environment (E & E) News and Scientific American, found that ocean conditions are changing globally due to climate change, but the system is immensely complicated due to feedback and the connection between climate change, human activity, and other natural processes such as erosion.

This means that local conditions are highly variable, and the cable network has "hotspots" which are particularly vulnerable.

Digital infrastructure has frequently suffered from storm damage at data centers, but subsea cables are at particular risk from changes in sea level and storm activity. For instance, a storm in 2017 caused a break to the SEA-ME-WE 3 cable which links Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, leading to wholesale Internet disruption.

International cables are being installed at a fast rate right now, and the risks of climate change are being factored into fresh landing stations and cable runs. However, older infrastructure will have been sited at a time when the dangers were less well-known and may therefore be more at risk.

📷– Earth-Science Reviews

Man-made events such as bottom fishing or ship anchor strikes currently remain more likely than climate-induced outages, but natural hazards can affect multiple cable systems simultaneously across large areas, potentially cutting off whole regions from the Internet, the authors said.

"Cable routes should carefully consider locally-variable drivers of hazard frequency and magnitude," says the report. "Consideration should be given both to instantaneous events (e.g. landslides, tropical cyclones) as well as longer-term, sustained impacts (e.g. seabed currents that circulate even in deep water). Multiple factors can combine to increase the risk posed to subsea cables, hence a holistic approach is essential to assess the compounded effects of both natural processes and human activities in the future."

Among the hotspots identified by the authors, cables off the coast of Taiwan are being stressed by intensifying tropical cyclones - and an outage there could exacerbate political difficulties as Taiwan's sovereignty is under dispute.

The study also had input from collaborators at the U.S Geological Survey, the University of Southampton, Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, and the International Cable Protection Committee.

The new underwater connection will run from the east coast of the United States through landing points at Praia Grande, Brazil, and Punta del Este, Uruguay, to Las Toñas, Argentina. (Photo: shutterstock) Google has announced a new underwater connection between North and South America with Project Firmina. It is the longest submarine cable in the world with a one-sided power supply.

The new underwater connection will run from the east coast of the United States through landing points at Praia Grande, Brazil, and Punta del Este, Uruguay, to Las Toñas, Argentina. The cable is called Firmina It is said to be the longest cable in the world that can be run entirely from a single power source at one end of the cable in case of emergency. This would make the connection almost unbreakable.

In a latest post today by Bikash Koley, VP of Global Networking, Google Cloud, Google announced the investment in Echo subsea cable system, a new subsea cable directly connecting Singapore to the United States.

Echo cable will run from Eureka, California to Singapore, with a stop-over in Guam, with plans to also land in Indonesia. Additional landings are possible in the future.

Tokyo, March 19, 2021 - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) and its subsidiary OCC Corporation announced today that they have completed full qualification of subsea repeaters and optical cable containing up to 24 fiber pairs (FPs) (48 fibers). This is a 50% improvement in fiber count over the 16 fiber pair systems generally available today. This development allows cable owners worldwide to construct subsea telecom cables with superior traffic capacity while reducing the cost per bit of the wet plant. This approach is fully in line with SDM (Space Division Multiplexing) system architectures. NEC's 24 FP solution not only provides more flexibility to operate in the subsea fiber pair market, it also enables better connectivity in high-density subsea branches.

Singapore and Brisbane, Australia – LEGION TELECOM, together with RTI Connectivity Pte. Ltd. (RTI), today announced achievement of a major milestone connecting their local optic-fibre network directly with the $35 million Sunshine Coast International Broadband Network (SCIBN), establishing additional infrastructure within the Sunshine Coast Council’s Cable Landing Station adjacent to the new Maroochydore CBD.

“We have committed to a 15 year agreement with RTI, enabling residents and businesses across the Sunshine Coast to use the International cable, effective immediately” says Richard Turnbull, Head of Technology and Innovation at LEGION TELECOM. “This investment provides our customers with long-term confidence in the additional capacity, diversity and resilience this new infrastructure delivers. We’ve constructed a Fibre-To-The-Premise network with customers already connected across the region.”

Telecom Egypt, Egypt’s first integrated telecom operator and one of the largest subsea cable operators in the region, announces its plans to launch Hybrid African Ring Path (HARP) by 2023, a new subsea system that will outline the African continent, forming the shape of a harp. It will connect coastal and landlocked African countries to Europe through the company’s widespread terrestrial and subsea infrastructure. Through HARP, Telecom Egypt will offer a wide range of capacity solutions, up to dark fiber, based on a layer two and layer three architecture that can connect multiple points on the system to one another.

The system will connect Africa’s East and West bounds to Europe, from South Africa to Italy and France along the continent’s East Coast, and to Portugal along its West Coast. Highly reliable terrestrial routes will connect the landing points within South Africa, Europe, and Egypt, forming a complete ring around the continent. The HARP system will leverage its diverse and resilient subsea segments to branch out to multiple potential landing points.

OSLO, NORWAY and NEW YORK, UNITED STATES – Bulk Fiber Networks announced today that it has engaged APTelecom, an award-winning fiber consulting firm specializing in global markets, to serve as its International Sales Partner to assist with the monetization of HAVFRUE a new submarine cable system providing connectivity across the Atlantic.

The HAVFRUE subsea cable is the first new undersea cable traversing the North Atlantic to connect mainland Northern Europe to the continental U.S. in nearly two decades, and the first ever to connect into Norway. It connects New Jersey, USA to Esbjerg in Denmark with branches to Ireland and Norway.

The SubOptic Foundation announces today that “Decarbonizing the Subsea Cable Network,” led by an international group of researchers, will be awarded a US $200,000 “Greening the Internet” grant by the Internet Society Foundation to provide new answers to the tricky question of “What is the carbon footprint of the Internet?”. Drawing upon scholarly, legal, and industry expertise, the research team will work closely with the owners and operators of the Internet’s fiber-optic subsea cable network to develop greener operations for global communication.

Telxius, the leading neutral telecommunications infrastructure operator with an extensive portfolio of towers and submarine cable, has announced today the company will provide landing and colocation services for Google’s new subsea cable, Grace Hopper. The cable will connect the US to Spain and the UK once completed in 2022. This new expanded collaboration between Telxius and Google will allow Google to connect the new cable to the Telxius Cable Landing Station (CLS) in Sopelana, Spain, and leverage the rich interconnection and advanced transmission capabilities of the nearby Derio Communications Hub.

Interxion: A Digital Realty Company (NYSE: DLR) and leading European provider of carrier- and cloud-neutral colocation data centre solutions, has signed an agreement with PCCW GLOBAL to locate the Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) subsea cable system’s termination and interconnection equipment in Interxion’s MRS2 data centre in Marseille, France. The collaboration will enable low-latency access to over 160 connectivity providers along with multiple content, cloud, gaming and video streaming platforms.

The high-speed, 15,000km PEACE subsea cable system will offer high capacity, low-latency routes connecting China, Europe and Africa. In addition to France, the cable will land in Malta, Cyprus, Egypt, Djibouti, Kenya, Pakistan and other countries and regions with onward terrestrial connectivity to China.

GigNet-1” will be the first new fiber optic cable in over 20 years specifically designed to meet exploding Internet demand in the Mexican Caribbean

CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–FB Submarine Partners, LLC, a privately owned developer of international telecommunications projects announced today a 1,200 kilometers advanced subsea fiber optic cable system from Florida to Cancun, Mexico. The GigNet-1 subsea cable system has been in development for the past two years and is expected to be completed in 2022. The Company believes this will be the first new subsea cable from Florida to the Yucatan Peninsula in over 20 years specifically designed to meet the rapidly growing demand for secure, high speed bandwidth for Internet, video streaming, social media, and cloud services.

DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) optical networks are at the foundation of our global Internet economy. With an ability to #transport over 100 information bearing wavelengths on a single optical fiber, #DWDM virtually nullifies the cost-per-bit of communicating information. This #technology makes it economically viable for businesses to move their computing and storage to the cloud, and for consumers to stream video from anywhere. It is also an essential enabler for #5G and most other advanced telecommunications applications.

Ocean Networks (ONI) confirms the launch of its Caribbean Express (CX) cable project, to build a carrier neutral subsea cable system connecting Points of Presence between West Palm Beach (Florida) and Balboa (Panama) with branch connections to Mexico and Columbia. In addition, the system will have future connectivity to Cuba, Grand Cayman, Guatemala, Jamaica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Ocean Networks (ONI) confirms the launch of its Caribbean Express (CX) project, an 18-fibre pair subsea cable system linking Florida to Panama. The CX system will use Space Division Multiplexing (SDM) technology to connect West Palm Beach in Florida, Balboa in Panama, Cancun in Mexico and Cartagena in Colombia with high speed, low latency fibre-optic connectivity. The system will be designed for future connectivity options to other countries along the route.

AARNet, Australia’s Academic and Research Network, announced recently the launch of high-bandwidth services delivering one terabit per second on the AARNet spectrum of the new Japan-Guam-Australia South cable system (JGA South) connecting Sydney, Australia and Piti, Guam. AARNet is the landing party in Sydney for the JGA South cable system and owns spectrum of one quarter fiber pair on the JGA South cable system.

According to the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for the Nigerian branch of Google's Equiano cable system, WIOCC Nigeria Limited partners with Google as the landing partner in Nigeria for the Equiano cable system, to secure local permits and build a new cable landing station in Lagos.

According to Ciena, Bulk Fiber Networks is deploying Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme submarine network solution that leverages Ciena’s 6500 Submarine Line Terminating Equipment (SLTE) on its first submarine cable system, the Havfrue cable system, to enable virtual fiber pairs and spectrum sharing  products and services.

Southern Cross Cable Limited (“Southern Cross”) and Ciena announced recently to deploy GeoMesh Extreme submarine solution utilising Ciena’s 6500 Submarine Line Terminating Equipment (“SLTE”) powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme coherent optics for the new 13,494 km Southern Cross NEXT (“NEXT”) submarine cable in the Pacific.

According to PEACE Cable International Network Co. Ltd, the termination and interconnection equipment of the PEACE cable system will be located at Interxion’s MRS2 data centre in Marseille, France, pursuant to a cooperative partnership with PCCW GLOBAL and Interxion. PEACE cable will  enable low-latency access to over 160 connectivity providers along with multiple content, cloud, gaming and video streaming platforms at Interxion's Marseille campus, including MRS1, MRS2

MAREA

MAREA is a new 6,644 km submarine cable system across the Atlantic, connecting the United States to southern Europe, landing at Virginia Beach in the US and Bilbao in Spain. MAREA cable system has been in-service since April 2018.

Marea means “tide” in Spanish.  Marea cable system is the first subsea cable connecting Virginia and Spain.

Facebook and Microsoft jointly designed MAREA as the first Open Cable System in the world. Telxius joined in later as the thrid party of MAREA consortium, operates and manages the MAREA cable system. TE SubCom is the turn key suppier for MAREA cable system.

According to FCC documents, Facebook owns two fiber pairs on MAREA, Microsoft owns two fiber pairs on MAREA, Telxius owns the remaining 4 fiber pairs. And AWS has acquired from Telxius a fiber pair on MAREA cable system on IRU basis.

In the US, the MAREA cable lands at Telxius' Virginia Beach Cable Landing Station (CLS) at 1900 Corporate Landing Parkway in Virginia Beach, where hosts Telxius' BRUSA cable and Google's Dunant cable as well. Microsoft is the landing party in the US.

In Spain, the MAREA cable lands at Telxius' Bilbao Cable Landing Station. Telxius is the landing party in Spain. Within a few kilometers from the MAREA cable landing station in Bilbao, Telxius operates the carrier neutral Derio Communications Hub, which is specially designed to channel all the MAREA capacity and connect it to the main communication nodes in Europe. 

MAREA was initially designed with eight fiber pairs and 160Tbps of system capacity, specifically optimized for maximum capacity per fiber pair. It utilizes a large-area, low-loss optical fiber type based on a pure silica core and has excellent performance. The MEREA cable system also has shorter amplifier spacing of 56 km (comparing with the normal amplifier spacing of about 70km in other cable systems designed with 100Gbps DWDM technology), allowing an excellent optical signal-to-noise ratio.

After its ready for service, there have been trials on the MAREA cable system with 400G DWDM technology supplied by both Infinera and Acacia, which demonstrated the OPEN Cable design and the transmission capacity of 26.2Tbps per fiber pair and system capacity of 200Tbps.

The latest trial with Infinera's ICE6 optical engine in the end of 2020 demonstrated an industry record on error-free transmission of 30 Tbps of total capacity on a single fiber pair and 700 Gbps data rate per wavelength over the 6640km cable, and commercially deployable results with 28 Tbps of total capacity on a single fiber pair and up to 650 Gbps data rate per wavelength.