Undersea cables carry nearly all of the world’s data, yet they have never been more exposed to conflict, geopolitical tensions and big tech expansion. Countries are turning to the International Telecommunications Union to strengthen governance over the internet\u2019s undersea backbone.<\/p>\n
Beneath the contested waters of the Strait of Hormuz, five fibre optic submarine cable systems connect Europe, Asia and the Gulf, carrying vast volumes of internet traffic. The US-Israeli war with Iran has placed them in unprecedented danger.<\/p>\n
At the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) council this week in Geneva, Gulf countries denounced direct strikes on a UAE cable landing station in late March, the suspension of cable projects in April, including sections of Meta\u2019s 2Africa project, and rising insurance costs. Iran\u2019s Defence Council is threatening to deploy sea mines across the Gulf, heightening concerns.<\/p>\n
A hidden backbone under threat<\/p>\n
While space\u2019s fast-expanding satellite networks have fuelled the belief that the internet lives mainly in the cloud, the bulk of the world\u2019s data still travels along the ocean floor. Stretching 1.5 million kilometres \u2013 nearly four times the distance to the Moon \u2013 these cables, no wider than a garden hose, are the backbone of the digital economy.<\/p>\n
The rise in conflict and tensions has exposed how vulnerable they are. In 2024, a vessel struck by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea drifted for two weeks before sinking, its dragging anchor severing three cables and cutting internet access for more than 100 million people across West and North Africa. A second incident in September 2025 damaged four more cables, one of which is still out of service.<\/p>\n
In the Baltic Sea, a string of suspicious incidents<\/a> in which data cables have been damaged or severed has triggered investigations into possible sabotage, with one of the suspected vessels connected to Russia\u2019s shadow fleet and another identified as China-linked. Proof of any wrongdoing, though, is inconclusive.<\/p>\n Last June, Taiwan jailed<\/a> a Chinese captain, accused of intentionally severing an undersea cable connecting the main island with the Penghu islands. It said it was part of China\u2019s \u201cgrey zone\u201d tactics to pressure the island it considers part of its own territory. Beijing denied any involvement.<\/p>\n Most cable damage, however, remains accidental. Around 200 faults occur globally every year, often caused by fishing nets or stray anchors. The International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC), a UK-based non-profit, says it has no verified cases of proven peacetime sabotage.<\/p>\n But conflict changes the calculus. \u201cIn wartime, cables can get cut,\u201d a senior cable industry official, who asked to remain anonymous, told Geneva Solutions. \u201cThe situation in the Strait of Hormuz is wartime, and normal rules do not apply.\u201d<\/p>\n A governance gap<\/p>\n When a cable snaps, specialised ships must locate the break, sometimes thousands of metres deep down, haul it to the surface, splice it and lay it back. With few ships available globally to do this work, once permits are granted and fair weather permitting, repairs can take weeks.<\/p>\n The legal framework protecting subsea cables has changed little in over 140 years. The 1884 Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables first criminalised damage to cables, and elements of it were incorporated and expanded in the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, now ratified by 170 countries, though not by the United States.<\/p>\n But gaps remain. There is still no clear mechanism to board and inspect a vessel on the high seas suspected of cable damage, and no obligation on its flag state to cooperate when a suspected vessel flees the scene.<\/p>\n In the US, the maximum penalty for damaging a submarine cable is only $5,000, while other countries like Australia, Colombia, New Zealand and Uruguay apply higher penalties reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars plus compensation to cable owners.<\/p>\n As accidents and risks multiply, attention is turning to the fragmented and outdated rules governing subsea cables. Founded in 1865 to regulate cross-border communications, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is taking on a more prominent role to address those gaps.<\/p>\n This shift accelerated in March 2024, when a cable failure off the coast of Nigeria knocked out internet access across West Africa, prompting Abuja to turn to the ITU. Within months, the UN agency and the ICPC assembled around 42 leaders and experts from the public and private sectors into what is now the International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone has bought into the fact that this is our common infrastructure and we need to figure out how to jointly protect it together,\u201d says Tomas Lamanauskas, ITU deputy secretary general and co-executive secretary of the advisory body.<\/p>\n In February, the body released initial recommendations, calling on governments to designate a single contact point for cable operators \u2013 aimed at speeding up permits and repairs that otherwise can take years.<\/p>\n Keeping up with rapid expansion<\/p>\n To make matters more complex, the system these rules are meant to govern is expanding. With the AI race and the ever-growing demand for greater bandwidth, investment in submarine cables is accelerating. For decades, these subsea networks were financed and governed by consortia of telecom operators sharing costs and capacity. Increasingly, tech giants are building and controlling their own infrastructure.<\/p>\n Last November, a consortium led by Meta, Facebook\u2019s parent company, completed the world\u2019s longest submarine cable system at 45,000 kilometres, encircling Africa and connecting Europe and Asia, while its planned Project Waterworth aims to stretch over 50,000 kilometres across five continents. Google and Amazon are also expanding private networks across entire ocean basins.<\/p>\n According to US research firm TeleGeography, global investment in new cables is expected to reach $13 billion between 2025 and 2027, roughly double the pace of the previous three years.<\/p>\n This rapid expansion adds another layer of complexity. Even the most powerful tech companies require government approval to lay a cable, and this is rarely straightforward. \u201cHistorically, even within many governments, these issues were handled in a rather fragmented way,\u201d says Lamanauskas. The advisory body aims to streamline coordination, though critics warn that faster approvals oversaturate the market, raising risks of accidents \u2013 and sabotage<\/a> \u2013 while concentrating control in the hands of a few tech firms.<\/p>\n Lamanauskas rejects the idea that the initiative is a vehicle for deregulation. \u201cThe discussion about more or less regulation is sometimes a bit misguided,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s really about what type of regulation.\u201d The goal, he says, is not to remove rules but to make them work.<\/p>\n On whether new international law is needed, Lamanauskas is cautious. \u201cTreaty-making processes can be very tempting, but they are really long processes,\u201d he says. \u201cSometimes it is better to look at improvements and better implementation than to start from scratch.\u201d<\/p>\n A final set of recommendations will be presented to ITU member states in June in Nassau at the World Telecommunication Policy Forum, ahead of the agency\u2019s big conference in November, where governments will decide whether to make the advisory body permanent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Undersea cables carry nearly all of the world’s data, yet they have never been more exposed to conflict,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,133822,85,46,37242],"class_list":["post-427590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-data-governance","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-itu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}