Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft Weave a Fiber-Optic Web of Power (wsj.com) 23
To say that Big Tech controls the internet might seem like an exaggeration. Increasingly, in at least one sense, it's literally true. From a report: The internet can seem intangible, a post-physical environment where things like viral posts, virtual goods and metaverse concerts just sort of happen. But creating that illusion requires a truly gargantuan -- and quickly-growing -- web of physical connections. Fiber-optic cable, which carries 95% of the world's international internet traffic, links up pretty much all of the world's data centers, those vast server warehouses where the computing happens that transforms all those 1s and 0s into our experience of the internet. Where those fiber-optic connections link up countries across the oceans, they consist almost entirely of cables running underwater -- some 1.3 million kilometers (or more than 800,000 miles) of bundled glass threads that make up the actual, physical international internet. And until recently, the overwhelming majority of the undersea fiber-optic cable being installed was controlled and used by telecommunications companies and governments. Today, that's no longer the case.
In less than a decade, four tech giants -- Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Meta (formerly Facebook ) and Amazon -- have become by far the dominant users of undersea-cable capacity. Before 2012, the share of the world's undersea fiber-optic capacity being used by those companies was less than 10%. Today, that figure is about 66%. And these four are just getting started, say analysts, submarine cable engineers and the companies themselves. In the next three years, they are on track to become primary financiers and owners of the web of undersea internet cables connecting the richest and most bandwidth-hungry countries on the shores of both the Atlantic and the Pacific, according to subsea cable analysis firm TeleGeography. By 2024, the four are projected to collectively have an ownership stake in more than 30 long-distance undersea cables, each up to thousands of miles long, connecting every continent on the globe save Antarctica. In 2010, these companies had an ownership stake in only one such cable -- the Unity cable partly owned by Google, connecting Japan and the U.S.
In less than a decade, four tech giants -- Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Meta (formerly Facebook ) and Amazon -- have become by far the dominant users of undersea-cable capacity. Before 2012, the share of the world's undersea fiber-optic capacity being used by those companies was less than 10%. Today, that figure is about 66%. And these four are just getting started, say analysts, submarine cable engineers and the companies themselves. In the next three years, they are on track to become primary financiers and owners of the web of undersea internet cables connecting the richest and most bandwidth-hungry countries on the shores of both the Atlantic and the Pacific, according to subsea cable analysis firm TeleGeography. By 2024, the four are projected to collectively have an ownership stake in more than 30 long-distance undersea cables, each up to thousands of miles long, connecting every continent on the globe save Antarctica. In 2010, these companies had an ownership stake in only one such cable -- the Unity cable partly owned by Google, connecting Japan and the U.S.
STOP SAYING META (Score:5, Insightful)
stop fucking saying "meta"
if you can say "Google" instead of "Alphabet", you sure as damn hell can say fucking "FACEBOOK"
Re: STOP SAYING META (Score:2)
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But wouldn't that be deadnaming? Depending on who you ask, that ranges from a serious faux pas to a hate crime.
Most of the revenue (Score:3)
Re:Woocommerce Advanced Feature (Score:1)
once time, there were literally thousands of ISPs (Score:3)
The people who built them, voluntarily SOLD them for fat money. ...And somehow that's the fault of those rotten lousy companies who bought them?
And, Comcast et al ARE rotten lousy companies. They were then too.
The transit fight are STILL going on today too.
The rotten lousy giant ISPs STILL can't agree on how to get paid.
Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Or do we just prefer knee jerk reactions?
Hopefully they are not allowed to ... (Score:2)
monitor and record source & destination addresses - ie know which web sites, etc, you are visiting. This would be invaluable to their harvesting of personal data. However I would not be surprised to learn that there is nothing to stop them from doing this :-(
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Using a VPN should be able to counter that.
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That's what VPN services are for. Your ISP likely already does this and will serve you some sort of advertising instead of most errors. But they sell thr data nonetheless.
So you encrypt your traffic to the VPN server and that is all the data the isp gets. The VPN server goes to your destination and that is all networks it crosses can get. The cops get a warrant and get everything.
mmmCables (Score:2)
I love the continuously growing number of undersea Internet cables. That's a sharp increase in 14 years! No wonder my tentacle porn is downloading faster now!
Better than the alternative (Score:4, Interesting)
The alternative is that the government owns it. And that is much worse, because the government has an Army and a Police. Unlike Google or Facebook which cannot come for me in the night. Also, Google and Facebook provide me with a service I need instead of using the money to pull me over when I am out trying to hustle. I have no defense against being exploited by the government.
Re:I have no defense against being exploited by th (Score:1)
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I get your broader point, but I disagree that facebook "provides a service you need." :-)
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Thanks :-)
Wait (Score:2)
Isn't that like the oil companies also owning all roads and railways?
if you are refering to facebook as 'meta'.... (Score:2)
95%? (Score:2)
I'm genuinely interested in where the 95% of the world's international internet traffic figure comes from. It seems incredibly low for me. What is the other 5% supposed to be? Radiolinks? Satellite? Coax? T1's? These technologies present much, much lower (individual and aggregate) capacity than fiber. And don't even consider Starlink, since their satellites work as repeaters between your location and a ground station near you (i. e. in your country).
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And don't even consider Starlink, since their satellites work as repeaters between your location and a ground station near you (i. e. in your country).
Those are the old Starlink satellites. The newer satellites use laser links to transfer data through the satellite network. Intermediary ground stations will soon not be needed.