Submarine fibre-optic cables carry the overwhelming majority of international data traffic today, providing enormous capacity at relatively low cost per unit of data. <\/p>\n
Satellite networks offer an alternative route that can bypass damaged infrastructure, but their available capacity is limited relative to the world’s total internet demand.<\/p>\n
The maths: Why satellites cannot replace undersea cables<\/p>\n
The scale difference is substantial.<\/p>\n
Consider a simplified illustration using a hypothetical submarine cable route with 20 terabits per second (Tbps) of usable capacity and a satellite backup link with 1 gigabit per second (Gbps).<\/p>\n
Since 1 Tbps equals 1,000 Gbps:<\/p>\n
Submarine cable: 20 Tbps = 20,000 Gbps.<\/p>\n
Satellite backup: 1 Gbps.<\/p>\n
Capacity difference: 20,000 to 1, or 20,000 times.<\/p>\n
Share of cable capacity replaced: 0.005%.<\/p>\n
In this example, a 1 Gbps satellite connection could replace just 0.005% of the cable route’s capacity.<\/p>\n
To match a 20 Tbps cable route using 1 Gbps satellite links, operators would need 20,000 such links running simultaneously at their full rated capacity.<\/p>\n
What happens when an undersea cable is cut?<\/p>\n
A cable failure does not necessarily disconnect an entire country. Internet traffic can often be rerouted through other cables, provided alternative routes have sufficient spare capacity.<\/p>\n
The real danger arises when multiple cables fail, when a country depends heavily on a small number of international links, or when remaining routes become congested.<\/p>\n
The International Telecommunication Union says submarine cables carry more than 99% of international data traffic. It also identifies physical damage, geographical concentration and lengthy repair times as major resilience challenges. <\/p>\n
Satellite connectivity can provide an additional route while engineers locate and repair damaged cables. <\/p>\n
Depending on the damage, weather, vessel availability and operating conditions, repairs can take days or weeks.<\/p>\n
What Starlink can\u2014and cannot\u2014do<\/p>\n
Where satellites can help:<\/p>\n
Emergency communications, messaging and limited data access.<\/p>\n
Disaster response when mobile towers, power supplies or terrestrial backhaul are damaged.<\/p>\n
Connectivity for remote islands, ships, aircraft and isolated communities.<\/p>\n
Essential business operations, including selected government services and limited financial transactions.<\/p>\n
A temporary alternative route for selected traffic during cable outages.<\/p>\n
Where satellites face limitations:<\/p>\n
High-volume video streaming and other bandwidth-intensive applications across entire populations.<\/p>\n
Large-scale cloud computing and data transfers.<\/p>\n
Financial and enterprise systems requiring consistently low latency and high reliability.<\/p>\n
Replacing the aggregate capacity of multiple submarine cables serving major cities and data centres.<\/p>\n
Satellite performance also varies by technology. <\/p>\n
Why satellites matter to the internet<\/p>\n
A damaged submarine cable can disrupt international connectivity. Satellite links can help emergency responders, local governments, hospitals and businesses maintain communications when conventional infrastructure fails.<\/p>\n
But satellite backup tend to complement \u2014 not replace \u2014 investment in submarine cables.<\/p>\n
In general, countries would benefit from diversifying cable landing points and international routes, improving fibre connectivity, strengthening terrestrial network redundancy and establishing satellite backup arrangements for critical facilities. <\/p>\n
The objective should be to prevent a single failure from becoming a nationwide digital emergency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Submarine fibre-optic cables carry the overwhelming majority of international data traffic today, providing enormous capacity at relatively low…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":893043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[174,74],"class_list":["post-893042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-internet","tag-internet","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/893043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}