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The Asia-Africa-Europe-1 web cable runs 15,500 miles along the seabed, connecting Hong Kong with Marseille, France. Snaking through the South China Sea and into Europe, the cable can provide web connections to more than a dozen countries, from India. When the cable was cut on June 7, millions of others were disconnected and faced temporary internet outages.
The cable, also known as AAE-1, was cut where it briefly crosses land through Egypt. Another cable was also damaged in the incident, as the cause of the damage was unknown. However, the effect was immediate. This has affected about seven countries and several extraordinary installations,” says Rosalind Thomas, managing director of SAEx International Management, which plans to create a new submarine cable linking Africa, Asia and the United States. “The worst was Ethiopia, which lost 90% of its connectivity, and Somalia, subsequently, also 85%. Cloud installations owned by Google, Amazon and Microsoft also suffered disruptions, a subsequent investigation revealed.
While the connection was restored within hours, the outage highlights the fragility of the more than 550 undersea cables worldwide, as well as the outsized role of Egypt and the neighboring Red Sea in web infrastructure. The global network of submarine cables constitutes a giant component of the backbone of the web, carrying most of the world’s knowledge and eventually connecting to the networks that force mobile towers and Wi-Fi connections. Submarine cables connect New York with London and Australia with Los Angeles.
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Sixteen of those undersea cables, which are no thicker than a garden hose and vulnerable to damage from anchors and earthquakes, cross 1,200 miles across the Red Sea before crossing land in Egypt and reaching the Mediterranean Sea, connecting Europe to Asia. More than two decades, the highway has become one of the biggest web throttling problems in the world and arguably the most vulnerable web hotspot on Earth. (The region, which also includes the Suez Canal, is also a global choke point for shipping and moving goods. Chaos ensued when shipping Ever Given containers got stuck in the channel in 2021. )
“Where there are throttling problems, there are unique fault problems,” said Nicole Starosielski, an associate professor of media, culture and communication at New York University and on submarine cables. “Because it’s a site of intense concentration of global movements, it makes it more vulnerable than many places in the world. “
The region has also recently attracted the attention of the European Parliament, which in a June report highlighted it as a threat of widespread internet disruption. “The most important bottleneck for the EU is the passage between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. Sea, as the main connectivity with Asia is through this route,” the report said, noting that maritime extremism and terrorism are threats in the region.
Look at Egypt on a map of the world’s undersea web cables and immediately understand why web experts have cared about the region for years. The region’s 16 cables are concentrated in the Red Sea and make landfall in Egypt, where they make an adventure across the country to succeed in the Mediterranean Sea. (Cable maps do not show the precise locations of cables. )
It is estimated that about 17% of global Internet traffic passes through those cables and passes through Egypt. Alan Mauldin, director of research at telecommunications market research firm TeleGeography, said last year that the region has 178 terabits of capacity, or 178,000,000 Mbps, in the U. S. The U. S. has an average house speed of 167 Mbps.
Egypt has one of the most significant vital strangulation problems on the web for several reasons, says Doug Madory, director of web analytics at surveillance company Kentik. Mainly, its geography contributes to the concentration of cables in the region. Crossing the Red Sea and crossing Egypt is the shortest (maximum) underwater direction between Asia and Europe. While some intercontinental network cables cross land, sometimes it’s safer to place them at the back of the sea, where it’s harder to disturb or spy on them.
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Passing through Egypt is one of the only convenient itineraries available. In the south, the cables surrounding Africa are longer; while in the north, only one cable (the Polar Express) passes over Russia. “Every time someone tries to chart a route of choice, they end up going through Syria, Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan; all those places have a lot of problems,” Mory says. The JADI cable formula that avoided Egypt was shut down because of Syria’s civil war, Madory says, and has not been reactivated. In March this year, another cable was cut that avoided Egypt following Russia’s large-scale invasion of Russia.
Riots are also occurring around the Red Sea itself. “The Red Sea is a fairly shallow water framework, and traditionally there have been a lot of cable cuts there,” Madory says. In 2013, the Egyptian army arrested another 3 people who allegedly cut wires in the area. Other nearby cables also suffered troubles in the same year. The region is not the only cable choke point in the world. near Singapore is another bottleneck. ” The Strait of Malacca is also an area of challenge, but I don’t think it’s as bad as Egypt,” says SAEx’s Thomas.
Mauldin says the Egyptian region can be considered a single point of failure due to the number of cables in one place. However, there are other reasons besides the prices of cables to cross the Red Sea. networks to join each other,” says Mauldin. At the same time, you have to balance that with the desire to have diversity [in the itineraries]. “
When undersea cables appear to be over land, at the northern end of the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez, Telecom Egypt, the country’s main supplier, is involved. Corporate rates wire homeowners to lay cables across the country. other routes, and do not go through the Suez Canal, so there are diversifications in the way they are distributed.
“This provides Egypt with a lot of strength in terms of telecommunications negotiations,” Starosielski said. A recent report via Data Center Dynamics, which covers Egypt’s “stranglehold on” the submarine cableArray, cites anonymous resources claiming that Telecom Egypt charges “exorbitant” fees for its services. (Neither Telecom Egypt, nor Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, nor the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority responded to WIRED’s request for comment. )
Submarine cables are fragile and gently damaged. Every year, there are more than a hundred incidents where wires are cut or damaged. Most of them are caused by shipping or environmental damage. However, in recent months, considerations about sabotage have developed. After the Nord Stream fuel pipeline explosions, governments around the world pledged to better protect undersea infrastructure and undersea cables. The UK also claimed that Russian submarines were tracking cables landing in the country.
Despite the dangers, the web is built on resilience. Companies that send information over undersea web cables don’t just use a cable and will have space on the cables. If one cable fails, traffic is eventually redirected to others. (In some areas, such as Tonga, where there is only one cable, outages can have devastating effects. )The lack of redundancy is why Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have spent millions on their own submarine. Web cables in recent years.
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When it comes to Egypt and the Red Sea, features are limited and more cables are the solution. While Elon Musk’s Starlink popularized the satellite internet, this type of formula doesn’t update submarine cables. Satellites are used to provide connectivity in rural spaces or as an emergency. relief, but they can’t fully upgrade the physical infrastructure. “They’re not going to manage the transport of terabit loads between continents. It’s just wires,” Mauldin says. (Satellite formulas also rely on stressed attachments to connect to the Internet. )
Further explanation of why roads around Egypt are extracted. Mauldin says additional landing sites are being built along the Egyptian coast, such as at Ras Ghareb, to allow cables to dock elsewhere. Egypt’s telecommunications government is also building a new land port addressing cables along the Suez Canal. It is believed that the cables will be housed in concrete conduits up to them.
However, the biggest effort to circumvent Egypt comes from Google. In July 2021, the company announced the creation of the Blue-Raman submarine cable that will link India with France. The cable crosses the Red Sea, but crosses land in Egypt, reaches the Mediterranean through Israel. Google did not respond to an interview request, but the cable will most likely have its own geopolitical challenges. Google has split the cable into two separate projects: Blue crosses Israel and Europe, while Raman connects to Saudi Arabia before moving to India. (Israel and Saudi Arabia have a complex relationship. )
Mauldin says the new road, which is expected to be in good condition in 2024, will likely set a precedent for more cables to pass through Israel over time. Once one cable is built, others will come. “proposal or just a smart concept really,” Mody adds. “Unless it’s Google and has an unlimited budget to do those things. “
Elsewhere, Thomas says the proposed SAEx cable, which is located overseas, plans to bypass Europe and link Africa to the Americas and Singapore. Thomas says the address will be a “totally wet” network and says he manages to avoid many of the risks involved. “Look at all this hacking, you have all your anchors, and you have high-risk countries and war zones,” Thomas says. “Our cable and Blue Ramen probably won’t upgrade to Egypt, we just offer alternatives. “
In the end, Egypt will be in the middle of the web connections of Europe and Asia. Geography cannot be changed. However, Mauldin says, much remains to be done to protect the world’s undersea network cables because everyone trusts them. “It’s very vital to national security, to the economy, to keep this going. “
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