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 703 submarine cable systems, based on real RIPE Atlas measurements from our probes worldwide.
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake occurred on June 26, 2026, approximately 7 km north of Oshino, Japan. The seismic activity is within a 350km radius of several submarine cables that we monitor.
Our latency measurements indicate potential impacts on the following cables: FLAG Europe-Asia (FEA), Apricot, I-AM Cable, and Japan-Guam-Australia North (JGA-N). Latency for these cables has shown slight increases, with average measured latencies of ~196ms to ~201ms, based on 7-day checks. Currently, there are no active alerts, but we continue to monitor the situation closely.
June 25, 2026 was a quiet day for GeoCables' submarine cable network monitoring. With 1798 latency/route checks across 647 cables and no anomalies or active alerts recorded, the network remained stable and healthy. This calm period reflects consistent performance across our monitored routes.
Notable per-cable signal changes included increases in latency for GTMO-PR (+238%), Antillas 1 (+112%), Fibralink (+175%), ALBA-1 (+67%), SPCS/Mistral (+44%), and GTMO-1 (+46%). These fluctuations, while significant, are within the range of normal network jitter. Conversely, Proa saw a healthy decrease in latency (-63%) and Project Waterworth experienced a 25% reduction, indicating balanced performance across various cable systems.
Why do internet packets travel thousands of kilometers off their direct route?
Analysis of Ukraine's internet connectivity: three submarine cables, landing points, and infrastructure in the conflict zone. GeoCables report.
Measurements show anomalies on the submarine cables ALBA-1 and SAC following the earthquake in Venezuela. Details and consequences.
Chokepoint Marsala off Sicily hosts 23 undersea cables linking Europe, Asia, and Africa. Explore break risks, geography, and reliant nations.
How war with Iran, conflict with Hezbollah, and Mediterranean geography shape Israel's internet connectivity via undersea cables-GeoCables analysis.
Traffic between Almaty and New York is rerouted through London, increasing delays to 717 ms.
25 undersea cables converge off Japan's Maruyama zone. GeoCables explores key routes, potential threats, dependencies, and real-world risks.
A geopolitical analysis of Russia's internet connectivity: 13 undersea cables, DNS censorship, conflict zones, and vulnerabilities in the Baltic, Sakhalin, and Black Sea.
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| Cable Multiplier | - |
| Crosses Ocean | - |
| Route Details | - |
| Data Source | - |
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 703 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.