Commentary – Undersea Cables: The Achilles Heel of our Economies

Follow up to Critical Undersea Internet Cables Damaged Between Europe and Mideast, this related commentary, Undersea Cables: The Achilles Heel of our Economies, by Franz-Stefan Gady

  • “Hardly any people know that our global digital connectivity rests upon a relatively few fiber optic cables lying at the bottom of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. They wrongly believe that their international communications are carried via satellite links. The truth is that 99 percent of transcontinental Internet traffic travels through these connecting cables; these are the lifelines of our economies. For proof, simply take a quick look at the financial services sector. In 2004 alone, nine million messages and approximately $7.4 trillion a day were traded via undersea cables worldwide. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a provider of financial messaging, sends about 15 million messages a day over cables. 1 million of these are financial transactions, amounting to over $4.7 trillion dollars a day commuting via the same undersea cables. The finance hub Hong Kong doubles its dependency, i.e. the volume of messages going through these cables, every 18 months.”
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    Posted in: Cybercrime, E-Commerce, Internet
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