Undersea Internet Cables
SAN FRANCISCO - A 4,000 mile undersea cable deal announced Thursday by Microsoft and Facebook is just the latest of a dozen high capacity trans-oceanic cables being built by tech companies to deal with their insatiable demand for bandwidth. The two companies plan to build a cable that will run from Virginia Beach, Va., to a data hub in Bilbao, Spain.
So, the Russians are at it again, snooping around the undersea communications cables that connect the continents. These fiber optic cables carry 99 percent of all transoceanic digital communication-phone calls, emails, web pages, you name it. They're the reason you can Skype your colleague in Sydney or text with your friend in Mumbai.