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Original Research on Submarine Cable Routing

In-depth analysis of how internet traffic moves through 703 submarine cable systems, based on real RIPE Atlas measurements from 5 probes worldwide.

Learn how it works

● Network stable · latest seismic event
🌐 earthquake

M5.1 earthquake · 27 km SE of Magdalena, Philippines

15h ago

The submarine cable network remains stable with no anomalies detected over the last 24 hours from our 1739 latency checks across 648 cables. The network continues to operate without any issues or active alerts.

On June 14, 2026, a M5.1 earthquake occurred near Magdalena, Philippines, approximately 27 km southeast of the event's epicenter. All submarine cables within 350km of this seismic activity are currently operating normally, with our latency measurements showing no impact from the event. The cables in range—such as the Palawan-Iloilo Cable System and National Digital Transmission Network (NDTN)—are all functioning as expected without any changes to their performance.

See it on the live map →
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Explore the map →
700+ submarine cables, landing points & routes
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Watch it live →
Real-time latency, outages & network pulse
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Read research →
Deep dives into cables, incidents & geography
Earlier on the networkFull chronicle →
17h 🌐 M5.2 earthquake · 53 km ENE of Hinatuan, Philippines Jun 14 🌐 M4.8 earthquake · 6 km ESE of Butulan, Philippines Jun 13 🌐 M4.6 earthquake · 52 km NE of Santa Marina Salina, Italy Jun 13 🌐 M4.5 earthquake · 75 km E of Hualien City, Taiwan Jun 13 🌐 M5.2 earthquake · 2 km WSW of Kablalan, Philippines
● Daily digest

Today on the network

Jun 15, 2026
1,734checks · 24h
647cables watched
0anomalies
0active alerts
12probes online

The network remains in excellent health today with no anomalies or active alerts recorded over the past 24 hours. Our comprehensive monitoring of 647 out of 703 submarine cables across the globe has been smooth and stable, ensuring reliable connectivity for our customers.

Today's per-cable signal changes are within normal operational ranges. The Kumul Domestic Submarine Cable System experienced a significant improvement in latency, dropping by 48% from its 7-day average. Conversely, the East-West Submarine Cable System saw an increase of 63%, though this is still within typical jitter patterns observed during regular operation. Other notable changes include a 20% decrease for the Asia-America Gateway (AAG) and a 24% increase for Hawaiki Nui 1, reflecting minor fluctuations in network performance that are consistent with routine variations.

Kumul Domestic Submarine Cable System▼ 128.6ms today vs 248ms 7d-avg (▼48%) East-West Submarine Cable System▲ 163ms today vs 100.2ms 7d-avg (▲63%) Dumai-Melaka Cable System (DMCS)▼ 72.4ms today vs 135.2ms 7d-avg (▼46%) 2Africa▲ 257.4ms today vs 207.1ms 7d-avg (▲24%) Hawaiki Nui 1▲ 206.4ms today vs 156.7ms 7d-avg (▲32%) Asia-America Gateway (AAG) Cable System▼ 186.2ms today vs 232.4ms 7d-avg (▼20%) Project Waterworth▼ 124.8ms today vs 164.2ms 7d-avg (▼24%) Tangerine▲ 68.6ms today vs 40.9ms 7d-avg (▲68%) Batam Sarawak Internet Cable System (BaSICS)▲ 204.2ms today vs 186ms 7d-avg (▲10%)

Latest Research

View all research →
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The Quiet Map: Watching the Internet of Three Billion People

Right now the internet works for almost everyone — and that planet-wide calm is worth watching. How we track outages across 1,011 providers and 3.1 billion users in 238 countries, and what a rare red pixel really means.

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One Cable From Darkness: The Islands Whose Internet Rides a Single Thread

We measure round trips of 400ms to Samoa and 450ms to the Cook Islands — the honest price of riding a single submarine cable. What 178,000 latency checks across 703 cables reveal about the internet's most fragile edges.

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Magnitude 4.6 earthquake off the coast of the Philippines: impact on submarine cables

Measurements show anomalies on several key submarine cables as a result of the 4.6 magnitude earthquake off the coast of the Philippines.

cable

Indonesian earthquake caused anomalies on several submarine cables

The event in Indonesia affected the operation of submarine cables, leading to increased delays. Our analytics provides detailed information on the current status.

cable

M6.0 Earthquake near Antigua & Barbuda

M6.0 Earthquake near Antigua & Barbuda — Submarine Cable Monitoring Report

cable

Japan M6.7 Earthquake - Submarine Cable Status Report

Japan M6.7 Earthquake — Submarine Cable Status Report May 15, 2026 · GeoCables Report · Region: Japan, Pacific Coast

cable AR → BR

Tannat Cable: 21 Days of Drift, Argentina to Brazil, 25ms to 506ms

From April 17 to May 7, 2026, our monitors watched Tannat's Argentina-to-Brazil latency drift from 25ms to 506ms — twenty times the physics floor. Twelve alerts, neighbouring cables clean. What an opaque submarine-cable rerouting looks like in three weeks of data.

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Earthquake-Resistant Submarine Cables: Engineering for the Ring of Fire

Distance Calculator

Resolving locations & calculating...

Straight-Line
Cable Route
Est. Latency
fiber ≈ 200k km/s
Route Type

📋 Connection Details

Point A
Point B
Coordinates A
Coordinates B
Cable Multiplier
Crosses Ocean
Route Details
Data Source
Building route...
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Route km
Hops
Est. RTT
Type
⚠️ Calculated distances may differ from actual cable routes by 5–15% due to seabed terrain, cable landing infrastructure, and network peering points.
703
Submarine Cables
1,932+
Landing Points
165,876
Health Checks
< 1s
Route Calculation
Features
Network infrastructure made visible
Three layers of analysis — from theoretical cable distances to real-world packet measurements.
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Smart Cable Routing

Dijkstra-based routing through real submarine cables and landing points from TeleGeography data. Accurate distance multipliers for land and undersea segments.

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Submarine Cable Map

Interactive map showing every cable your data touches — backbone nodes, landing stations, and submarine segments with real geographic coordinates.

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RIPE Atlas Verification

Launch real network measurements from probes worldwide. Compare theoretical estimates with actual RTT and hop-by-hop packet journeys with ISP geolocation.

Latency Estimation

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.

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IP & Domain Resolution

Enter cities, IP addresses, or domain names — everything is resolved to coordinates with hosting location identification and optimal cable route.

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Packet Journey Analysis

Traceroute hops enriched with city, country, ISP. Phases auto-detected: local → ISP → CDN → backbone → submarine cable. Visual RTT timelines.

How It Works
From two points to a complete picture
Three-step analysis reveals the hidden infrastructure connecting any two locations.
1

Enter any two points

City names, IP addresses, or domains. The system resolves coordinates, identifies countries, and determines whether the route crosses oceans.

2

Smart Route calculates the path

A graph algorithm finds the optimal route through landing points and submarine cables with accurate distance multipliers for each segment type.

3

Verify with live measurements

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.

Use Cases
Built for engineers. Useful for everyone.
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Network Engineers

Validate routing assumptions, estimate latency budgets, troubleshoot unexpected paths.

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Gaming & Low-Latency

Understand your ping. Compare the physical speed limit vs reality for any server.

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CDN & Cloud Planning

Choose optimal PoP locations based on submarine cable topology and landing proximity.

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Education & Research

Teach how the physical internet works. Visualize the gap between light speed and real routing.

Submarine Cable Facts
The hidden backbone of the internet
Everything you see online travels through a global network of undersea fiber optic cables. Here's what makes it work.
1.4 million km

Total Cable Length

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.

99%

Intercontinental Data Share

Submarine cables carry over 99% of intercontinental data traffic. Despite what many people think, satellites handle only a tiny fraction of global internet traffic.

200,000 km/s

Speed of Light in Fiber

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.

25 years

Cable Lifespan

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.

~8,000m

Deepest Cable Depth

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.

~$1B+

Cost Per Major Cable

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.

ℹ️ About GeoCables — Original Research on Submarine Cable Routing

How Internet Traffic Routes Through Submarine Cables

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.

Theory vs Reality: Why Measured Latency Matters

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.

Live Cable Monitoring

Real-time health checks from GeoCables measurement servers. Full dashboard →
703
Cables Monitored
768
Checks Today
163ms
Avg RTT (24h)
165,876
Total Checks
🔴 West Africa Cable System (WACS) 147ms 74–527ms 🔴 Project Waterworth 160ms 0–408ms 🔴 SAT-3/WASC 231ms 0–509ms 🔴 South Atlantic Cable System (SACS) 121ms 44–244ms 🔴 Asia Connect Cable-1 (ACC-1) 226ms 174–285ms 🟡 Groote Eylandt 143ms 107–196ms 🟡 North-West Cable System 142ms 108–198ms 🔴 Hawaiki Nui 1 157ms 23–474ms 🔴 Palapa Ring East 266ms 217–328ms 🔴 2Africa 250ms 12–461ms 🔴 Circe North 76ms 31–252ms 🔴 East-West Submarine Cable System 114ms 16–366ms 🔴 Unitel North Submarine Cable (UNSC) 227ms 174–283ms 🔴 2Africa 154ms 49–293ms 🔴 Kardesa 116ms 36–269ms 🔴 Indonesia Global Gateway (IGG) System 70ms 21–211ms 🔴 ARCOS 146ms 64–279ms 🔴 IRIS 38ms 30–168ms 🔴 Labuan-Brunei Submarine Cable 250ms 43–284ms 🔴 America Movil Submarine Cable System-1 (AMX-1) 195ms 141–298ms 🔴 Maya-1.2 135ms 22–242ms 🔴 Silphium 156ms 138–500ms 🔴 Lake Tanganyika 226ms 174–283ms 🔴 SEAX-1 56ms 10–115ms 🟡 JAKABARE 55ms 15–111ms 🔴 Jakarta-Bangka-Bintan-Batam-Singapore (B3JS) 57ms 17–145ms 🟡 Blue 92ms 88–187ms 🔴 Batam Sarawak Internet Cable System (BaSICS) 193ms 18–369ms 🔴 Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) 211ms 0–392ms 🔴 TAM-1 168ms 52–325ms
🏆 Cable of the Day
2Africa
Slowest route today: 🟢 461ms from Sydney to Gqeberha. · 14 hops
<p>2Africa is a 45,000-kilometre submarine cable system that encircles the African continent and extends into the Middle East and Europe. At the time ...
🚨 Anomaly Detected
West Africa Cable System (WACS)
Latency to Seixal hit 527ms — 5.4x above baseline (98ms).

Recent Cable Checks

JUPITER Cape Town → Hermosa Beach 273ms
TPU Singapore → Claveria 33ms
2Africa Sao Paulo → Gqeberha 360ms
FASTER Singapore → Tanshui 46ms
Project Waterworth Sydney → Darwin 0ms
SAT-3/WASC Cape Town → Melkbosstrand 0ms
Lake Tanganyika Moscow → Los Angeles 175ms
Palapa Ring East Minsk → Sao Paulo 224ms

Internet Health (IODA)

IODA data loading...

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a submarine cable?
A submarine cable is a fiber-optic cable laid on the ocean floor to carry telecommunications data between land-based stations. Over 95% of intercontinental internet traffic travels through these cables — they are the physical backbone of the global internet, far more important than satellites for bulk data transfer.
How does GeoCables monitor cable health?
GeoCables operates measurement servers in Minsk, Almaty, Tbilisi, and Jerusalem equipped with RIPE Atlas probes. These servers run continuous ping and traceroute measurements to destinations near cable landing points, comparing real-time RTT (Round Trip Time) against historical baselines. When RTT exceeds 4x the baseline, the system flags an anomaly.
How accurate is the cable distance calculator?
The calculator uses real submarine cable route data from TeleGeography (695 cables, 1,900+ landing points) with a Dijkstra-based routing algorithm. Distances are estimates based on geographic cable paths — actual distances may vary by 5-15% depending on cable slack, seabed terrain, and routing decisions made during cable installation.
Why is real latency higher than the theoretical minimum?
Light travels through fiber at about 200,000 km/s — two-thirds the speed of light in vacuum. But real-world RTT is typically 1.5-4x higher than the physical minimum due to optical amplifier processing delays, routing overhead at each network hop, protocol processing, peering between different carriers, and suboptimal path selection by ISPs.
What happens when a submarine cable is cut?
When a cable is severed, internet traffic automatically reroutes through alternative paths via the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Users may experience higher latency but rarely total outages — the internet was designed to route around damage. However, repairs can take weeks to months, requiring specialized cable ships that are in short supply globally.
How many submarine cables exist in the world?
As of 2026, there are approximately 695 submarine cable systems in service or under construction worldwide, spanning over 1.5 million kilometers of ocean floor. GeoCables tracks all of them, with active health monitoring on the most critical routes.

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