Why Egypt Became One of the Biggest Chokepoints for Internet Cables 25
When underwater cables congregate in one place, things get tricky. From a report: Look at Egypt on a map of the world's subsea Internet cables and it immediately becomes clear why Internet experts have been concerned about the area for years. The 16 cables in the area are concentrated through the Red Sea and touch land in Egypt, where they make a 100-mile journey across the country to reach the Mediterranean Sea. (Cable maps don't show the exact locations of cables.) It has been estimated that around 17 percent of the world's Internet traffic travels along these cables and passes through Egypt. Alan Mauldin, the research director of telecoms market research firm TeleGeography, says last year the region had 178 terabits of capacity, or 178,000,000Mbps -- the US has median home Internet speeds of 167Mbps.
Egypt has become one of the Internet's most prominent chokepoints for a few reasons, says Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis at monitoring firm Kentik. Primarily, its geography contributes to the concentration of cables in the area. Passing through the Red Sea and across Egypt is the shortest (mostly) underwater route between Asia and Europe. While some intercontinental Internet cables travel across land, it is generally safer for them to be placed at the bottom of the sea where it is harder for them to be disrupted or snooped upon. Going through Egypt is one of the only practical routes available. To the south, cables that pass around Africa are longer; while to the north, only one cable (the Polar Express) travels above Russia. "Every time someone tries to draw up an alternative route, you end up going through Syria or Iraq or Iran or Afghanistan -- all these places have a lot of issues," Madory says. The JADI cable system that bypassed Egypt was shut down due to Syria's civil war, Madory says, and it has not been reactivated. In March this year, another cable avoiding Egypt was severed as a consequence of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Egypt has become one of the Internet's most prominent chokepoints for a few reasons, says Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis at monitoring firm Kentik. Primarily, its geography contributes to the concentration of cables in the area. Passing through the Red Sea and across Egypt is the shortest (mostly) underwater route between Asia and Europe. While some intercontinental Internet cables travel across land, it is generally safer for them to be placed at the bottom of the sea where it is harder for them to be disrupted or snooped upon. Going through Egypt is one of the only practical routes available. To the south, cables that pass around Africa are longer; while to the north, only one cable (the Polar Express) travels above Russia. "Every time someone tries to draw up an alternative route, you end up going through Syria or Iraq or Iran or Afghanistan -- all these places have a lot of issues," Madory says. The JADI cable system that bypassed Egypt was shut down due to Syria's civil war, Madory says, and it has not been reactivated. In March this year, another cable avoiding Egypt was severed as a consequence of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Short story (Score:3)
It's the geography. (Score:2, Informative)
Easiest to lay them in the sea, and having cables go through the red sea means dealing with Egypt.
Stability is a nice bonus, of course. If it wasn't, the cables would get laid the long way 'round. But the geography comes first.
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Map (Score:5, Interesting)
The actual map isn't linked in the summary, but it's pretty cool. [submarinecablemap.com]
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It's awful (Score:4, Funny)
And they're all in de-Nile about it.
Could go through Israel (Score:2)
It wouldn't be much longer to go through Israel, from Eilat to Ashkelon, for example. 240km vs 140km.
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You mixed in a lot of irrelevant political nonsense with a question asked in bad faith.
Although I'm sure you know that, deep down.
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Are fucking joking? The whole reason the lines go through Egypt IS ABOUT POLITICS. Are you a fucking Asperger retard or something?
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Also it isn't offtopic. Gaza borders with Egypt.
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Adding more overland capacity should both improve redundancy and speed. (Assuming the overland route is not as fast as all the sea based routes combined.)
Neil Stephenson (Score:4, Informative)
His essay Mother Earth, Motherboard [wired.com] is still the best when it comes to the worldwide cable network that connects us all.
Cleopatra (Score:2)
The face that launched a thousand scps.
Irrelevant (Score:5, Interesting)
The US has chokepoints too. Most of the transatlantic capacity is in the NYC area. The cable landing stations are scattered around Long Island and New Jersey, but most wavelengths actually drop in NYC and aren't switched elsewhere. There are some newer cables landing in Boston and Virginia Beach that help marginally, but you'd be surprised how many critical networks have no meaningful diversity. Thankfully it would really take an atomic bomb on NYC to really have such widespread effects, but it's probably one of the top targets should that ever happen.
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Yeah, but if those bombs start dropping, the internet might be the least of our worries.
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Yeah, but if those bombs start dropping, the internet might be the least of our worries.
An interesting statement given that an original design goal of the internet by the military was to be sufficiently decentralized to route around damage in the case of war.
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That was before commercial interests got their hands on it.
And the actual 'internet' the military uses isn't "The Internet".
Sorry to put it bluntly (Score:2)
When the choices for cable-routing are ...underwater, even if well out of the way and intrinsically expensive, at least means the problems you have to cope with are reasonably predictable* and/or limited.
- underwater, or
- through some shithole country
*limited to quakes, vulcanism, dragging anchors, nets, & shit, and a few advanced nations with the capability for submarine fuckery vs a nearly infinite variety on 'asshole with a grudge and some capacity for causing damage'.
Pointless but interesting anecdote. Really. (Score:3, Interesting)
I took down a large part of the internet in the middle east.
I’m posting anonymously so that you know I’m not glory seeking and so I’m not going to bring trouble my way somehow.
So I was a very young teenager this was maybe 93 - 95 timeframe. I got into an internet slapfight with some guy and got his IP address. I did the normal huff and puff about blowing his house down and then he said bring it! I DoS’s his IP address and saw him drop and went about my way. I don’t recall how I did this but believe me the only thing notable about the attack was probably my age and the fact that at the time DoS attacks were often better understood by skids than actual professionals.
Well somehow that machine was terribly important for something called RITSEC and he worked for IBM and I’d caused a regional internet outage. The guy came back later and was very nice explaining this to me and impressed that a little kid was capable of such a thing. He asked me what I did and I told him and he said never to do it again.
Not terribly exciting but interesting and this story made me remember for the first time in years.