Smart Cable Routing
Dijkstra-based routing through real submarine cables and landing points from the industry cable inventory. Accurate distance multipliers for land and undersea segments.
In-depth analysis of how internet traffic moves through 723 submarine cable systems, based on real measurements from our probes worldwide.
On October 28, 2026, a magnitude 5.4 earthquake occurred 193 km west-southwest of Merizo Village, Guam. The event was centered offshore and did not result in significant disruption to populated areas. Authorities responded promptly, and no major impacts to infrastructure or public safety were reported in the vicinity of the epicenter.
The submarine cable systems in the region demonstrated resilience during the seismic activity, maintaining stable connectivity and consistent performance. Notable cables include Apricot and Echo, both landing at Agat, Guam, approximately 197 km from the earthquake's epicenter, which held their average round-trip latencies of ~101 ms and ~109 ms, respectively. Additionally, the Japan-Guam-Australia South (JGA-S) system, landing at Piti, Guam, maintained its average latency of ~87 ms, ensuring uninterrupted traffic flow across its corridor.
Monitoring of these critical submarine cable systems continues in real time, with 2930 latency checks conducted across 720 systems in the past 24 hours. These efforts ensure ongoing oversight of network performance and stability, supporting reliable global connectivity.
On October 26, 2026, GeoCables' network monitoring showed an overall healthy state with no anomalies detected. Across 666 submarine cables, we conducted 3023 latency/route checks over the past 24 hours, indicating a stable and robust cable network. While today was relatively calm with only 5 active alerts, these movements are worth noting as they reflect normal operational fluctuations.
Specifically, several cables exhibited increased monitoring signals: Antillas 1 (+263% RTT), Gemini Bermuda (+112% RTT), Apollo (+5031% RTT), and JUPITER (+244% RTT). Additionally, the East-West Submarine Cable System saw a significant increase of 891%, Jakarta-Bangka-Batam-Singapore (B2JS) rose by 149%, Russia-Japan Cable Network (RJCN) by 106%, and JAKABARE by 66%. These increases are interpreted as normal jitter rather than signs of damage or issues, ensuring a calm outlook for the network.
All cable incidents, each with its own report →
A 6-magnitude earthquake occurred 214 km northwest of Port-Olri, Vanuatu. The submarine cable Tamtam withstood the tremor.
Why did the signal travel around the globe, tripling the delay? We dive into the details.
Magnitude 6.5 earthquake off the Bonin Islands on October 25, 2026. The Ogasawara cable withstood the shock, and service remains stable.
The 6.9 magnitude earthquake off Vanuatu did not affect the operation of the submarine cable Tamtam. The infrastructure demonstrates resilience.
Internet traffic from Georgia to Japan routed through Singapore, causing a fourfold increase in latency.
Earthquake magnitude 4.5 near Honchō, Japan, caused anomalies on submarine cable SJC2. Analyzing impacts on internet traffic.
Discover how traffic routing increases latency by nearly four times.
The 6.6 magnitude earthquake in Vanuatu did not disrupt the operation of the submarine cable Tamtam. The infrastructure remains resilient.
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| Route Details | - |
| Data Source | - |
Dijkstra-based routing through real submarine cables and landing points from the industry cable inventory. 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 our own measurement network 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 measurements from our own distributed network of measurement servers. We trace specific routes across 723 submarine cable systems and 1,900+ landing points in the global cable inventory, 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.
We run our own measurement network worldwide and watch in real time how traffic moves through submarine cables: where latency climbs, where links drop, what is happening right now. Open the live map to see network health and where it is noisy.