About 99% of the internet flows through undersea cables
I bet you imagine the internet as a magical cloud floating wirelessly between satellites and Wi-Fi routers. Nope. It’s mostly underwater.
Nearly all of your “in the cloud” traffic actually travels through fiber-optic cables laid along the ocean floor. These thin strands of glass are buried in some places and simply resting on the seafloor in others.
So when those cables snap, you know it.
🚢 Global glitch
Earlier this month, multiple cables in the Red Sea were cut, probably by some cargo ship’s anchor. Microsoft issued a warning to Azure cloud customers about slower performance.
Folks noticed laggy video calls, stalled apps and slow-loading websites. It’s a sharp reminder that the entire internet depends on a few glass noodles running through the ocean.
⚓️ Hosed again
Most undersea internet cables are about as thick as a garden hose, roughly 1 to 2 inches wide. Inside? A bundle of glass fibers thinner than a human hair, wrapped in layers of protection: gel for insulation, steel wire for strength, Kevlar for durability, copper for power and a tough waterproof coating to survive years underwater.
Each meter (about 3 feet) of cable weighs 10 to 20 pounds, depending on where it’s going. In deep, calm ocean waters, it’s lighter. But near shorelines or rocky terrain, where the risk of damage is higher, the cable gets extra armor, and that adds weight fast.
🌊 Stats to win trivia night
About 99% of internet traffic flows through undersea fiber cables.
We’ve laid over 1.7 million kilometers (about 1.05 million miles) of these cables across oceans, and up to 200 of them are damaged every year, usually by ships or fishing gear.
When a cable breaks, internet traffic reroutes. That means slower speeds, higher latency and cloud hiccups, even if you’re nowhere near the ocean.
📬 It’s just email
Even if your message is staying in the U.S., it might still pass through cloud data centers overseas. Big tech companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon balance internet traffic around the world for speed and cost.
So when a major undersea cable goes down, your everyday apps can feel the ripple effect, no matter where you are.
The next time your Wi-Fi freezes, don’t assume your ISP or router is to blame. Somewhere out there, a rusty anchor might’ve just crushed a fiber-optic hose carrying half the internet.
👨🏼🔧 I thought this sign outside a plumbing business was so clever. “We’re #1 with your #2’s.”
Tags: cables, internet, traffic, websites, Wi-Fi
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