Smart Cable Routing
Dijkstra-based routing through real submarine cables and landing points from TeleGeography data. Accurate distance multipliers for land and undersea segments.
In-depth analysis of how internet traffic moves through 708 submarine cable systems, based on real measurements from our probes worldwide.
On August 7, 2026, a magnitude 4.8 earthquake occurred 108 km north-northwest of Batang, Indonesia. The event was centered in a region with a moderate population density and was monitored closely by regional and global seismic networks. While the earthquake was notable, its impact on critical infrastructure in the vicinity, including submarine cable systems, was minimal due to its moderate magnitude and distance from key facilities.
The Apricot cable system, which lands at Tanjung Pakis, Indonesia (approximately 345 km from the earthquake's epicenter), demonstrated its resilience by maintaining stable operations throughout. This system, which connects key locations across Asia, consistently held its baseline latency of approximately 174 ms during the last seven days, based on 11 checks conducted in that period. Across the 705 submarine cable systems monitored globally, 2555 latency checks over the past 24 hours confirmed the robust performance of these critical communication corridors.
Real-time monitoring of these and other submarine cable systems continues, ensuring the ongoing stability and reliability of global connectivity. This continuous oversight helps safeguard the infrastructure that underpins international communications and data exchange.
August 7, 2026 - Today’s network monitoring for GeoCables was largely uneventful with no anomalies detected across the 652 submarine cables we monitor. There were only two active alerts, one of which is new while another has been resolved within the last 24 hours, indicating some normal fluctuations in latency that are typical for our scale of operation.
Specifically, several cables showed notable changes in their round-trip times (RTT). The High-capacity Undersea Guernsey Optical-fibre (HUGO) and Matrix Cable System both experienced warning alerts with increased RTTs by 152% and 124%, respectively. Meanwhile, the Taiwan Strait Express-1 (TSE-1), West Africa Cable System (WACS), and 2Africa saw improvements in latency, reducing their RTTs by 33%, 32%, and 32% from their seven-day averages. The Bharat Lanka Cable System and CrossChannel Fibre showed increases of 92% and 396%, respectively, while the Nigeria Cameroon Submarine Cable System (NCSCS) improved significantly by 74%. These changes are within expected variability and do not indicate any significant issues.
Analysis of Ras Ghareb chokepoint: 17 undersea cables, critical risks, and its impact on international connectivity.
Traffic between Israel and South Africa routes through London, increasing delays fourfold.
A deep dive into Tong Fuk's chokepoint, where 17 undersea cables converge. Explore how geography shapes routes and the impact of a break.
Analysis of Romania's internet infrastructure: submarine cables, isolation risks, and the impact of governance and conflicts.
A magnitude 6 earthquake struck off the coast of Vanuatu. The submarine cables Tamtam and ICN1 maintained functionality, ensuring stability in regional connectivity.
Earthquake magnitude 4.7 near Santa Doménica, Italy, caused anomalies on submarine cables MedNautilus, OTEGLOBE Kokkini-Bari, and Adria-1. Details and monitoring data.
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Dijkstra-based routing through real submarine cables and landing points from TeleGeography data. Accurate distance multipliers for land and undersea segments.
Interactive map showing every cable your data touches - backbone nodes, landing stations, and submarine segments with real geographic coordinates.
Launch real network measurements from probes worldwide. Compare theoretical estimates with actual RTT and hop-by-hop packet journeys with ISP geolocation.
Speed-of-light physics combined with cable distance to estimate latency. See the real-world overhead - how much slower actual routing is vs fiber limits.
Enter cities, IP addresses, or domain names - everything is resolved to coordinates with hosting location identification and optimal cable route.
Traceroute hops enriched with city, country, ISP. Phases auto-detected: local → ISP → CDN → backbone → submarine cable. Visual RTT timelines.
City names, IP addresses, or domains. The system resolves coordinates, identifies countries, and determines whether the route crosses oceans.
A graph algorithm finds the optimal route through landing points and submarine cables with accurate distance multipliers for each segment type.
One click launches RIPE Atlas probes for real ping and traceroute. See actual RTT, identify every router, and find where your packet enters submarine cables.
Validate routing assumptions, estimate latency budgets, troubleshoot unexpected paths.
Understand your ping. Compare the physical speed limit vs reality for any server.
Choose optimal PoP locations based on submarine cable topology and landing proximity.
Teach how the physical internet works. Visualize the gap between light speed and real routing.
Over 500 submarine cable systems span the world's oceans, with a combined length of approximately 1.4 million kilometers - enough to circle the Earth 35 times.
Submarine cables carry over 99% of intercontinental data traffic. Despite what many people think, satellites handle only a tiny fraction of global internet traffic.
Light travels through fiber optic cable at about two-thirds the speed of light in vacuum. A signal from London to New York takes approximately 28 milliseconds one way.
Modern submarine cables are designed to last 25 years. Cables are buried in the seabed near shores and laid directly on the ocean floor in deep water, protected by layers of steel and polyethylene.
The deepest submarine cables reach the abyssal plains at nearly 8,000 meters. At these depths, cables rest on the ocean floor under enormous pressure, beyond the reach of anchors and fishing gear.
Major transoceanic cable projects like 2Africa or PEACE cost over $1 billion. Investment comes from tech giants like Google, Meta, and Microsoft, as well as telecom consortiums.
GeoCables is a research publication on the physical infrastructure of the global internet. We publish in-depth analyses of how data actually travels between countries - which submarine cables are used, what the measured latency is, and why it differs from the theoretical minimum.
Our research is grounded in real RIPE Atlas measurements collected from five probes we operate in Minsk, Almaty, Tbilisi, Jerusalem, and Sevastopol. We trace specific routes across 708 submarine cable systems and 1,900+ landing points cataloged by TeleGeography, then publish what we find.
Light through fiber travels at ~200,000 km/s - about two-thirds the speed of light in vacuum. That sets the theoretical floor for round-trip time. In practice, real RTT is 1.5-4× higher due to routing detours, optical amplifiers, protocol processing, peering between networks, and suboptimal path selection. Our research articles document this overhead on specific routes - measuring it, explaining it, and tracing it back to the cables and networks responsible.