The Fragile Internet
It was interesting to read that a few days ago, a ship accidentally cut off internet access to 75 million people in India, Dubai and Egypt. And it wasn’t just internet that was disrupted - phones were affected too. Internet access slowed to a snails pace as traffic tried to find alternative means of routing. Businesses and home users were equally affected and the situation became so desperate that the Egyptian government urged home users to stop using the internet to allow business traffic to be able to get through. It got me thinking - how disruptive would that be to users here in Australia if it were to happen here? Recent trends show than almost all of us do not go a day without a phone call, email or jumping on to the internet.
This map is a rough guide to the under-sea cables that link the world’s communication. As you can see, Australia doesn’t have many links out of the country. Are we really immune? Imagine the millions of dollars lost to business for each day internet was effectively unavailable. Are governments doing enough to ensure these valuable links to the outside world are secure? It’s certainly food for thought…