This page will focus on the innovation of undersea cables and the technology that has enabled their installation all over the world! Without undersea cables, there would not be a reliable network connection across continents. In addition, there are many redundant cables so that if one gets damaged, another can be used to transfer data across the world!
Most of the information and pictures was taken from this wonderful article at the Electrical Engineering Portal!
The first cables across the atlantic were laid in the 1850's and used for the telegraph. The wires were made of copper and the first message that was 98 words long took 16 hours to send!
This diagram demonstrates the modern installation process. A large barge ship has a huge roll of undersea cable. At the same time, the barge is towing an underwater trenching machine that uses a powerful jet of water to dig a path for the pipe.
Modern undersea cables are covered with a thick protective layer. The cables are laid in trenches like the image below!
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This disagram shows the hundreds of cables that are laid across the world. Notice how the sheer number of cables creates redundant paths so that if one cable is damaged, data could take another route to travel across the globe!
