The recent earthquake in Japan was a terrible thing, and I am sure that the whole story has captivated a lot of peoples hearts within this community. Our thoughts and prayers are certainly with Japan at this time.
Here at 8BIT we are very much focused on internet and technology, and one thing that doesn’t seem to have been highlighted in the mainstream media (quite understandably due to the more pressing issues) is the fact that two cables linking Japan and the United States were seriously damaged to the point of a 30 percent slowing of bandwidth.
This is a serious issue for business, especially as Japan wasn’t in the greatest economic situation before the earthquake and tsunami struck. Now that the devastation has happened and much of the country is at a standstill, a 30% slowing of bandwidth is not exactly what the economy needs right now.
The other interesting thing that has been highlighted as a result of this is how vulnerable Australia is if they were to have a situation similar the Japan recently. As an island they are very exposed, and, as expected, the internet is a huge resource within their economy. ABC News in Australia recently said:
Australia is heavily dependent upon a network of fibre-optic cables that cross the Pacific Ocean carrying to 99 per cent of Australia’s voice and data traffic.
Around 70 per cent of this traffic flows through Hawaii, the rest flows through other ‘choke points’ in Indonesia and Guam – all of which are subject to major natural events, says Goff.
“We are surrounded in the Pacific by the Ring of Fire and these [cables] go across it. So there is an element of concern about how exposed we are,” says Goff, adding that much of the infrastructure is old and difficult to replace.
“Tens of billions of dollars of our economy is pumped through these things. If you … slow it down by 20 per cent how many billions of dollars does that represent to our economy?”
The internet is such an important resource in this day and age, yet, our world can be such a fragile thing.
Graham says
I keep forgetting there are cables running along the ocean floor all around the world. You said it well, the world is a fragile place and we sometimes do a really good job of forgetting that.
From the technological point of view, I’m guessing that satellites are becoming more and more of a presence in these types of networks and eventually might be able to act as a sort of backup. I’m not sure… I could be way off on that.
James Brooks says
Yeh Graham, i’m not sure myself to be honest.