99% Of The World's International Communications Goes Through Undersea Cables

Starosielski thought the subject would be boring, but she instead wrote 'The Undersea Network,' one of the first books on the topic. Nicole Starosielski

Douglas Main, Newsweek: Undersea Cables Transport 99 Percent of International Data

Things at the bottom of the sea: pale fish, manganese nodules, plastic trash and cables. Lots of cables.

In our wireless, satellite-broadcasted world, it’s easy to forget that most of our electronic communications still run through wires. This includes the vast majority of international calls, text messages and Internet transmissions, which must be ferried through cables that stretch across continents at the bottom of the ocean.

These undersea cables are easy to forget, since they are well out of sight and mind. But without them, the world as we know it would cease to exist, and their history is fascinating, says Nicole Starosielski, an assistant professor of media, culture and communication at New York University. Starosielski first looked into the topic while in grad school at U.C. Santa Barbara, at her adviser’s behest; she thought it would be boring, but she instead found herself enthralled, and ended up writing one of the first books on the topic called The Undersea Network.

WNU Editor: I always assumed that most communications was done by satellites .... and a lot is .... but when it comes to international data ...i it appears that cables are the rule. When looking at the maps, it appears that it is the U.S., the Suez Canal, Singapore, and Hong Kong that are the critical choke points.