Today’s terrestrial internet is built with a network of underground cables, connecting homes, businesses, data centers, and more. However, this only enables fast connectivity within a single body of land. Beneath the oceans lie a complex network of submarine cables that enable high-speed connections between continents, making the internet truly global.
Fiber optic cables make up the backbone of submarine systems, which enable the fastest data transfer speeds possible across oceans. Direct, fiber connections along and between continents significantly reduces latency between global markets.
Latency is the time it takes for data to move between locations on the internet. High latency results in slow load times and poor connections – think of the dreaded “spinning wheel” you see when a web page is slow to load, or waiting for a video to buffer. Keeping latency low across global networks is critical to providing the fast, seamless, online experiences we expect from today’s digital world.
Connecting directly to submarine cable systems for global performance
At NetActuate, our global network is one of the five largest in the world. One of the ways we keep our network fast and high-performing is by establishing points of presence in data centers where these submarine cables terminate. This lets us establish fast, direct connections to both the local markets where the data centers are physically located, and also to the locations they are connected to via submarine cable.
We recently added a new location in India to our footprint, inside the CLS or “Cable Landing Station” facility where both the SEA-ME-WE 4 and i2i submarine cables terminate. Creating these cables is no small undertaking: SEA-ME-WE 4, which stands for the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 is an approximately 11,100-mile submarine cable that cost $500 million to build and terminates in 17 different data centers. It connects Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria, and France all via fiber optic cables.
The biggest benefit of submarine cable systems is the ability to reach multiple global markets without having to physically deploy resources in each one.
From our new location in India, we can reach end users all the way in Italy and France with low latency, high performance connectivity.
A foundation for fast, reliable, and affordable global data transfer
Submarine cable systems have massive geographical reach. The world’s largest submarine cable is currently being constructed: 2Africa is has recently landed in three continents, and all told will be nearly 28,000 miles of undersea fiber optic cable. Submarine cable systems like 2Africa help make the global internet far more efficient by offering more direct routes between far-flung locations.
By minimizing the number of intermediary networks and possible bottlenecks, submarine cable systems reduce congestion and enable a smoother, more reliable data flow. This helps facilitate our modern, digital world, where businesses have global reach and users expect instant access to everything online.
Submarine cables also play a key role in keeping the global internet robust and reliable. One of the only other options for connectivity across continents and oceans is via satellite, which can be unreliable, as it is susceptible to atmospheric interference and other environmental factors. By being buried underneath the seabed and protected by cable armor, submarine cables are far less likely to have any signal disruption. This makes them able to deliver consistent connectivity even in adverse weather conditions or natural disasters.
Undersea cables enable a truly global, interconnected world
Digital economies around the world are expanding and growing every day. Modern businesses rely on a seamless and high-capacity network infrastructure to reach these new global markets. Submarine cable systems are critical to providing these new digital ecosystems the affordable, reliable, and high-bandwidth connections they need to thrive. By transmitting vast amounts of data over long distances, submarine cables ensure that businesses can operate efficiently and competitively on a global scale without compromising on performance.
If you’d like to learn more about deploying resources in a facility that houses a submarine cable landing station, you can schedule a call with NetActuate’s network experts today. We support everything from virtual machines to full rack colocation to bandwidth, customized to meet your unique business requirements.