The Subsea Battleground

When the products and services that we use throughout the day “just work,” it’s normal for us to take for granted the infrastructure and technology that make it all happen.

We don’t think about the GPS satellites in space when we use Apple Maps, Google Maps, or Waze to help us navigate with remarkable accuracy.

We don’t think about the power lines, cable TV cables, or fiber optic infrastructure that come from some distribution hub and somehow make it to our homes.

We don’t think about these things… Until they go down.

And then we’re left with no water, no electricity, no navigation, no TV, or no internet. The last of which is the service that is the most difficult to live without.

Whether it’s a solar flare, a major storm, a fallen tree, or some construction crew that cut the wire, the end result is the same. We’re cut off. No access. No connectivity.

If we’re retired, losing internet is not the worst thing to happen. At most, it’s very frustrating. If we’re working, we can no longer function. And if we’re a teenager, it’s just about the end of the world.

Whenever we’re cut off, most of us curse the cable or the telecom company, historically known for horrible customer service. And wouldn’t it be better if the cable or fiber were buried underground, safe from storms and trees?

But there’s a much more critical piece of infrastructure that we never see. Something much larger and more important than the infrastructure around where we live. 

And when those lines go down, countries or even continents can be impacted.

The Backbone of the World’s Internet Infrastructure

There are about 574 active and under construction subsea cable systems… and 1,636 landing points around the world that connect these underwater fiber optic lines to land-based fiber networks.

These subsea cables are quite literally the backbone of the world’s internet infrastructure, carrying more than 99% of the world’s data traffic.

Source: TeleGeography

Despite how busy the image looks above, the number of subsea cable lines grows materially each year. 

Just since 2020, the number of subsea cables has jumped 28%, and the number of landing points has increased 37%.

I’m sure that most of us would logically conclude that the increase in these subsea fiber optic cables is to support the ever-increasing data traffic. That’s certainly not incorrect. 

As a proxy for how quickly internet data traffic is growing, below is a chart of the global mobile network data traffic. It’s worth noting that data traffic that passes through mobile networks happens almost entirely over fiber optic networks that shuttle voice, video, and data from point A to point B.

Global Mobile Network Data Traffic (in Exabytes Per Month)

Source: Ericsson Mobility Report

The overall trend is very clear – up and to the right. 

And despite the rate of year-on-year growth slowly declining, data traffic is still growing at about 25% a year. Even at that pace, data traffic will double again in just three years.

The bigger context is that back in the first quarter of 2017, data traffic was just 10 exabytes (EB) a month. In the first quarter of this year, it was 145 EB. That’s a 14.5x increase over the last seven years.

Understanding this simple fact makes it easy for us to understand why a technology like 5G is needed, with more data throughput and more allocated spectrum (= bandwidth).

If all we had today was the 4G networks of 2020, we’d be in trouble. The networks would be overloaded, network congestion would be everywhere, and our internet services on mobile devices would be very slow.

It’s also why there is such a need to continue the torrid buildout of subsea fiber optic cables. These cables have the same issues with congestion as wireless networks do.

Source: Reuters

But it’s not just about the growth in data traffic. It’s about resiliency. And also national security.

There is a war happening, it’s just that most of us don’t see it.

The Subsea Battlefront

I’ve been writing a lot about the battles that have been developing between the U.S. and China in Outer Limits and The Bleeding Edge for years now. 

For those of you who have been reading, the U.S. and China are in an all-out race, not just to return to the moon, but to establish a permanent presence on the lunar surface, in a strategic location where the moon’s most precious resources can be extracted. (We covered this recently in The Bleeding Edge – It’s Mission Critical to the Moon.)

If that’s not enough, another gauntlet has been thrown down with clear plans to do the same on Mars.

And China is in the process of building out its own answer to SpaceX’s Starlink network so that it, too, has control over an internet backbone in space.

I’ve also documented China’s national ambitions to become the world’s dominant superpower in artificial intelligence (AI) by the year 2030, just a short six years from now. This isn’t a science project for China, it is a national priority and a strategic plan that was put in place in 2017.

And I have predicted China’s forthcoming “occupation” of Taiwan for economic leverage to use globally by controlling Taiwan’s most valuable economic output – its semiconductor production.

If that wasn’t enough, yet another battlefront is playing out under the world’s oceans. 

Those who control the world’s undersea fiber optic cables also control the ability to surveil them.

And if you can’t own them, there are clever ways to hack or sabotage them.

We’ll pick up here in tomorrow’s issue of The Bleeding Edge.