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.
How it happened. The scene plays once; the time is sped up.
The major outage in U.S. Virgin Islands affected VI Powernet: signal down 63%, serves 63.3% of the country's users. Virgin Islands Next and University of the Virgin showed no change. Across the country, 52% of address blocks stopped answering our checks.
On October 15, 2026, a magnitude 5.3 earthquake occurred 43 km south-southeast of Otorohanga, New Zealand. The event was classified at a green alert level, indicating minimal expected impact on infrastructure and populations in the area. The earthquake was monitored in real time by relevant authorities, with systems in place to provide notifications and updates as needed.
Key submarine cable systems in the vicinity demonstrated resilience during and after the seismic activity. The Tasman Global Access (TGA) Cable, connecting New Zealand to Australia with a landing point in Raglan (94 km from the epicenter), maintained an average round-trip time of ~29ms. Similarly, the Southern Cross NEXT cable, landing in Takapuna, New Zealand (203 km from the event), upheld its baseline latency of ~159ms. These systems, along with others in the region, continued to carry traffic without disruption, showcasing the robustness of the network infrastructure.
Our monitoring operations remain active, with 2411 latency checks conducted across 720 submarine cable systems in the past 24 hours. These systems, including those near the earthquake's epicenter, are under continuous observation to ensure stable and reliable connectivity.
October 15, 2026 was a relatively calm day for GeoCables' network monitoring. Across the 669 submarine cables we monitor, there were no flagged anomalies and only one active alert, indicating overall stability in the network. Our system conducted 2447 latency/route checks, reflecting our comprehensive coverage of global submarine cable routes.
Notable changes included warnings on several cables: Amitie (up 169% RTT), IRIS (up 143% RTT), and UGARIT (up to 133.4ms from a baseline of 6.7ms, an increase of 1891%), among others. These increases are within the normal range of network jitter and do not indicate any significant issues or potential damage. The other cables showed similar patterns of fluctuation, with some experiencing minor to moderate changes in latency.
All cable incidents, each with its own report →
Flooding in Jordan led to anomalies on submarine cables in the region, including BERYTAR, IMEWE and others.
The 6-magnitude earthquake that occurred near Kokopo, Papua-New Guinea, on October 13, 2026, did not affect the operation of the Kumul and Coral Sea submarine cables.
Magnitude 6.1, earthquake near Río Grande, Panama. Cable infrastructure, including CSN-1, Curie, and PCCS, withstood the impact.
The M6.2 earthquake off Papua-New Guinea did not affect the operation of the Kumul and Coral Sea submarine cables.
Magnitude 4.6 earthquake in Santa Cruz, Philippines affected the operation of submarine cables, including APCN-2, ADC, and others.
The magnitude 6 earthquake near La Trozos, Panama, tested the resilience of the submarine cables PAC, Curie, PCCS, and others. The infrastructure operates normally.
magnitude 6.6 earthquake near Rio Grande, Panama. Analysis of submarine cables in the zone: Alisios, Curie, PCCS, CSN-1, and others.
Magnitude 4.6 earthquake off the Izu Islands caused anomalies on submarine cables, including APCN-2 and EAC-C2C.
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| Point B | - |
| Coordinates A | - |
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| Cable Multiplier | - |
| Crosses Ocean | - |
| 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.