![]() At present, (2022), there are 8 cables delivering data to both the GCC and Europe, with 4 more to enter service by 2024. The networks of Bahrain and Kuwait are almost exclusively tied to other Gulf states, with the exceptions of the ‘Kuwait-Iran,’ ‘GBICS’, and ‘FALCON’ cables, which link them to Iran and India, among others. Of those, the GCC countries are connected to 33 cables, with Saudi Arabia being the most served country (21), followed by the UAE (19), Oman (17), Qatar (7), Bahrain (5), and Kuwait (5). There are only 59 cables connected to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. NATO and the European Union (EU) have underlined the challenges sabotage operations pose to the network and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are particularly vulnerable given the acute threats posed by state and non-state actors and the essential interconnection of Gulf and Red Sea submarine cables are soft targets with tremendous spillover effects globally.Įurope is served by 186 cables (active or in service by 2025). Securing the network is crucial for global security. Such infrastructure enables the majority of global economic activities, diplomatic communications, and military operations. Over 500 submarine cables carry about 95% of the world’s Internet data, conveying some €10 trillion in financial transactions every day. TeleGeography also released an interactive version of the map that lets users select individual cables to view its name, length, owners and landing points, when it came online and even the cable’s website.The key to global connectivity lies at the bottom of the sea. and Asia only ran about $28,000 per kilometer. A recent cable under the Mediterranean cost about $90,000 per kilometer, while a new $560 million trans-pacific cable connecting the U.S. Some of the short, regional cables - like ones running between the countries of Georgia and Russia, Kuwait and Iran, or Syria and Cyprus - can be $10 million or less, though Hjembo noted that when one looks at cost-per-kilometer, these cables can actually be more expensive than the longer ones. "Point-to-point is more cost effective than that branch to multiple landing stations in different countries." "Length adds to the cost, and complication of the system," Hjembo said. Jon Hjembo, a senior analyst at TeleGeography, explained to the International Business Times that one of the early cables that crossed entire Atlantic ocean cost more than $2 billion, though most today are in hundreds-of-millions range. When large, international telecommunications companies like AT&T and Level 3 began laying cables in the early 2000s, they were very expensive. The 2011 tsunami destroyed many of Japan’s cables, but the country was able to stay online thanks to a healthy network of backups.ĭiagram shows what an underwater fiber-optic cable is made of. The developed world is also continually building new cables to back up the existing ones, which constantly face the dangers both natural (earthquakes, landslides, hurricanes, etc.) and manmade (dropped anchors). “We're seeing cables to remote islands like Tonga and Vanuatu, bringing extremely small conurbations into the fiber network around the world.” “In the past year, many cables were being built to the east coast of Africa, where it was all satellite,” Mauldin said. ![]() Although satellites can reach remote parts of the world and projects like the Outernet and Google’s Project Loon aim to use airborne devices to beam wireless Internet to mobile devices, countries around the world are investing more in building new fiber-optic cables. The advantage to using cables to deliver information is that it is much less expensive than using satellites, so much larger amounts of information can be carried. TeleGeography’s research director, Alan Mauldin, told CNN that 99 percent of international communications run on these underwater cables. The Submarine Cable Map visualizes the vast network of underwater cables that connect the globe.
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