- In 2018 we created around 2.5 million terabytes of data every day. This roughly equals 425 million HD movies a day. Any comparison is in itself massive, so it is understandable if these numbers are difficult to grasp. What’s more, data creation is growing at an exponential rate every year.
All this data exists in different storage centres across the world. But I am able to access the statistics shown here, probably stored in servers in the US, while sitting in India, because of the Internet — the greatest invention of the 20th and 21st centuries. But when we think of the Internet, many wrongly assume that satellites in space keep us connected with different parts of the world. In reality, 99% of the data travels between economies and continents through undersea cables.
Regarding the internet undersea cables - only hard work because:
- cable installation is slow, tedious, expensive work
- sharks are trying to eat the internet
- the internet is as vulnerable underwater as it is underground
- spies love underwater cables
- governments are turning to submarine cables to avoid said spies
- underwater cables are not easy to repair, but after 150 years, we've learned a trick or two
- the internet's undersea backbone is built to last for 25 years.
- "I don't know whether Nynex management foresaw the burst of demand related to the Internet a few years ago - I don't think so. Nobody - not even AT&T people - foresaw this. But the demand for Internet transmission is so huge that FLAG will certainly become a very important pipe to transmit such requirements."