Submarine and terrestrial cables carry communications signals, such as internet traffic, across oceans and over land – and are often heavily insulated to prevent them from being damaged.
However, with enough determination and a little bit of ingenuity even cables in the deepest waters can be damaged, whether intentionally or not.
The latest report from Cloudflare on internet disruptions pins damage to submarine cables as the leading cause of internet outages in the first quarter of 2024.
Restrictions, disruptions, and unrest
The most significant deliberate disruption of internet traffic was caused by Houthi rebels operating in the Red Sea, who have cut three cables in the region alongside disrupting international shipping in a campaign of missile and drone strikes against traffic navigating the Suez canal. The Europe India Gateway, Seacom/Tata, and Asia Africa Europe-1 cables all had signs of intentional damage most likely done using a ship’s anchor, the report states.
Cables surrounding the African coastline have been particularly vulnerable to underwater rockfalls, with the West African Cable System, Submarine Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable, African Coast to Europe and MainOne all receiving damage in this manner.
Elections, periods of civil unrest, or a combination of the two also contributed to outages in some regions of the world, usually done to suppress protests and control the flow of information, with Chad, Pakistan and Senegal all showing fluctuations and outages in regular traffic.
War is obviously another contributing factor for regions experiencing internet outages, with Ukraine, Sudan and Palestine all suffering impacts to their connectivity, with Ukraine’s disruptions being largely caused by Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukrainian energy production infrastructure.