Cable cut fears

Posted by multippt

Looks like people are getting worried that their Internet connection may get cut off any time soon because of unprecedented damages to the undersea cables (does not affect US Internet users). While a severed cable may impact the speed of Internet access, Internet Service Providers will quickly re-route Internet traffic to healthier traffic. So, ideally there should be no worry about have your Internet connection cut just because some terrorist (fortunately, there aren’t) blew up some cables.

Interestingly, cable cuts happen all the time (once every few days). However, it is usually the more performance damaging ones like the 2 cable cuts recently that disrupted Internet access in the Middle East, as well as the cable damage cause by an Earthquake last year which disrupted Internet access in Asia that are publicized. Given that the Internet was designed to re-route communications as soon as a break was found, why was it that those cable damages can impair the quality of the Internet?

It could be that those cables were heavily used, or that some cables were used more than others. Those cables happen to be the main carriers. Damaging any one of those significantly will cause traffic to be re-routed. If you are lucky, you have a not-so-commonly used cable nearby to re-route to. If you are not so lucky, you get a over-crowded cable that its already under pressure to keep up with its normal requests. It’s also known that several areas in the Middle East like India as well as parts of Asia (like Japan and China) that uses the Internet a lot. That may have caused the stress, which would have led to the over-usage of several cables. There are also much lesser cables in certain areas, making the disruptions more apparently because there are lesser places to re-route to if a cable is broken.

Though, what if you have to deal with 5 cable cuts occuring near at home? That’s what happened a few days ago. Such a “coordination” in cable breakages and damages over a short number of days has prompted many Internet users to conspire that it may have been a coordinated attempt by terrorists (after all, it is strange that Iran and Iraq seems to be sitting by quietly as though nothing has happened). Though, cutting off the Internet does not give any sort of advantage. It mainly caused nuisence to Internet users, and is a great inconvenience.