Submarine Cable Tools: Calculator, Monitor, Research
Everything you need to know about GeoCables in one place. Choose a section below or scroll through the complete guide.
Route Calculator
01GeoCables shows the real path your data takes - not a straight line on a map, but along submarine fiber-optic cables on the ocean floor.
Enter two points
Type any two cities, IP addresses, or domain names. GeoCables will find the nearest cable landing points and calculate the actual route.
Calculate
Press Calculate to get cable distance, estimated latency, and a visual route on the map.
Two distances explained
Straight-line is the geometric shortest path. Cable route is the real distance your data travels - cables follow the ocean floor, avoid seismic zones, and stop at intermediate landing points. Always longer.
Estimated latency (RTT)
Round-trip time: how long a packet takes there and back. Light travels through glass fiber at ~200,000 km/s. The initial estimate uses a distance multiplier for the route type. For precise results, click Smart Route - it calculates the actual path through real cables and landing points.
Smart Route
The main feature: builds a full hop-by-hop route using Dijkstra's algorithm over a real graph of 1,900+ landing points, 723 submarine cables, and overland backbone hubs. Shows each segment - submarine or land - with named cables, distances, and estimated RTT. Always more accurate than the quick estimate above.
See it on the site →Example: London to Tokyo
London to Tokyo: two real-world paths exist. The overland route runs through Scandinavia, Russia, and China (~10,600 km, ~80ms RTT) - carried by fiber providers like RETN and Cogent. The submarine route goes via the Mediterranean, Suez Canal, Indian Ocean, and Southeast Asia (~26,000 km, ~130ms). Smart Route finds the shortest path and shows you every cable and landing point along the way. Try it: geocables.com/?from=London&to=Tokyo
See it on the site →Example: New York to Sao Paulo
New York to Sao Paulo: ~7,800 km via the Seabras-1 submarine cable - a direct fiber link from Wall Township, NJ to Praia Grande, Brazil. Straight-line distance: ~7,700 km. Alternative cables: BRUSA, SAm-1, Monet, EllaLink (via Portugal). Smart Route finds the optimal path. Try it: geocables.com/?from=New+York&to=Sao+Paulo
See it on the site →Health Monitoring
02Real-time monitoring of 723 submarine cables using our own distributed measurement network.
Live coverage
The status bar shows how many cables are actively monitored and when the last measurement was taken. Each cable is checked several times a day from the nearest probe.
Cable health map
Green = normal, yellow = degraded, red = critical or down, grey = unmonitored. Click any cable to highlight it and see its current RTT, hops, and baseline comparison.
See it on the site →Alerts & Checks
The Alerts tab shows active anomalies and elevated routes. The Checks tab shows all recent measurements - RTT, hop count, ratio vs baseline, and confidence level.
Anomaly detection
The system compares current RTT against a rolling baseline for each cable. Three levels: Normal (below 2×), Elevated (2×-4×, yellow), and Anomaly (above 4×, red). All status indicators - badge, map, alerts, checks, and email notifications - are driven by a single source: the cable_alerts table.
Email alerts
Enable "Cable anomaly alerts" in your profile settings to receive email notifications when anomalies or elevated routes are detected.
Event Log
The Event Log at /health/events shows the full chronological history of all detected incidents - spikes, confirmed anomalies, alert escalations, and resolutions. You can get there from the Health Monitor page by clicking "Event Log" in the navigation bar, or from any alert card via the "View full event log" link. The page features: search by cable name or city, filters by event type (spikes, alerts, all) and severity, time range selection (7/30/90 days), and pagination. Events are grouped by incident - related spikes, confirmations, and resolutions for the same cable appear together. The top bar shows real-time counters: Active Now (current open incidents), total Incidents, Spikes, and Resolved in the selected period.
See it on the site →How measurements work
Several times a day GeoCables runs ping and traceroute measurements to both ends of each cable from the nearest available probe. Results are collected every 30 minutes, compared against rolling baselines (average of the last 20 measurements), and anomalies are detected automatically.
Three-layer detection
Layer 1 (Cable level): compares RTT against cable-specific baselines. Ratio >= 4x = Anomaly (red), 2x-4x = Elevated (yellow). A single measurement above 4x immediately flags the cable. Layer 2 (Network level): analyzes hop-by-hop traceroute data across 1,300+ cities and thousands of IP addresses. Detects degraded links between specific operators - for example, 'Level 3 to Arelion in Sofia: 6x above normal'. Layer 3 (Hop level): tracks individual IP-to-IP links with rolling baselines from 30,000+ link pairs. Detects micro-anomalies invisible at cable level.
Alert verdict
Not every alert means a cable fault. After an event the system checks whether other measurement points saw the delay and whether the route itself changed. If only one point saw the deviation, the record is labelled “likely a false alarm from one point”. Such records stay in the /incidents archive but are kept apart from the significant ones.
See it on the site →Cables & Locations
03Browse the database of 723 submarine cable systems and 1,900+ landing points worldwide.
Cable pages
Each cable has a dedicated page with technical specs, landing points, length, owners, and current health status from our monitoring system.
See it on the site →Location pages
Each landing point shows which cables connect there, the city and country, and links to related routes and monitoring data.
See it on the site →Research articles
Our research section features in-depth analyses of submarine cable routes, anomalies, and infrastructure - written by our engineering team.
See it on the site →Your Account
04Create an account to save favorites, get API access, and enable email notifications.
Registration
Anonymous users can make up to 10 calculations per day. Sign up with your email to get 50 calculations/day, save favorite routes, track calculation history, and receive cable anomaly alerts. Verify your email to unlock API access.
Favorites
Save frequently used routes by clicking the star icon in calculator results. Access them anytime from your profile.
API Key
Generate a personal API key from your profile to integrate GeoCables data into your own applications and monitoring systems.
Notifications
Toggle "Cable anomaly alerts" in Settings to receive email digests when submarine cable anomalies or elevated latency is detected.
Network Intelligence Map
05A live view of the global routing landscape - 1,300+ cities, real-time anomaly detection, and traceroute visualization powered by our probe network.
Switching to Network view
On the Health Dashboard, click the "Network" toggle in the top-left corner of the map. This switches from the submarine cable view to the network intelligence layer showing routing nodes worldwide.
City markers
Each dot represents a city where our probes have detected routing nodes. Colors indicate status: green = normal, yellow = elevated or warning, red = critical anomaly (latency spike above baseline), grey = stale (no data for 48+ hours). Critical and warning markers pulse to draw attention.
Route lines
Curved lines show actual traceroute paths through anomalous cities. Red lines pass through critical nodes, orange through warning nodes. The more severe the anomaly, the more curved the line. Click any city marker to reveal all routes passing through it (highlighted in yellow for 15 seconds).
City popup details
Click a city marker to see its status, average RTT, number of tracked IPs, total measurement samples, top network (ASN), and a 24-hour RTT sparkline chart. The popup loads detailed data including the top 5 IPs by sample count and all routes passing through that city.
Anomaly sidebar
In Network mode, the sidebar displays a ranked list of all anomalous cities with their spike ratio, RTT, IP count, and top network. Click any entry to fly to that city on the map. Cities are sorted by severity - critical first, then warning, then elevated.
Traffic heatmap
A subtle blue heatmap layer shows measurement intensity - areas with more probe traffic glow brighter. This reveals the density of our monitoring coverage across different regions.
Degraded links detail
When you click a city with elevated or warning status, the popup shows not just general stats but specific degraded links - operator-to-operator connections currently running above normal. For example: 'Level 3 (Sofia) to TATA Communications (Paris): 2.9x +136ms'. This tells you exactly which transit provider is having issues and on which segment. Data comes from real-time analysis of 30,000+ hop-to-hop links with historical baselines.
Under the Hood
06The technology behind GeoCables - how we measure, detect, and visualize the health of the world's submarine cable infrastructure.
Measurement network
GeoCables relies on its own distributed measurement network, complemented by public measurement platforms. Each vantage point performs network tests (ping, traceroute) on demand. We schedule measurements from the points nearest to cable landing points, so that we test the actual submarine segments rather than just terrestrial paths.
See it on the site →Measurement pipeline
The system runs continuously: each cycle it selects a batch of cables (prioritizing those not checked recently or showing anomalies), runs the measurements and logs them. Every 30 minutes the collector fetches the results, saves RTT and traceroute hops, calculates ratios against baselines, and triggers alerts when thresholds are exceeded.
Traceroute analysis
Each traceroute reveals the hop-by-hop path your data takes - every router, every city, every network it crosses. GeoCables geolocates each hop IP, identifies the operator (AS number), and tracks RTT differences between consecutive hops. A sudden RTT jump of 150ms between two hops suggests a long submarine cable segment. We use this to detect which specific cable carried the traffic and to identify bottlenecks.
Baseline intelligence
Baselines are not static thresholds - they adapt over time. For each cable route, we maintain a rolling average of the last 20 successful measurements. This means seasonal variations (cable maintenance windows, traffic pattern changes) are absorbed naturally. When current RTT deviates significantly from this adaptive baseline, that is a real signal, not noise.
See it on the site →Data scale
GeoCables currently monitors 723 submarine cable systems connecting 1,900+ landing points across 150+ countries. The database tracks thousands of unique IP addresses across 1,300+ cities, with 30,000+ hop-to-hop link pairs analyzed for anomalies. Every health check includes RTT measurements and full traceroute paths.
VPN Probes
07Connect to our measurement servers via WireGuard VPN and see the internet from a different geographic perspective - run your own traceroutes, test latency, and verify cable routes firsthand.
What is it?
GeoCables operates its own distributed network of measurement probes. These are the same servers that run our measurements and health checks. With a one-click VPN connection, you route your traffic through one of these probes and experience the internet as if you were physically there.
How to connect
From the Health Monitor page, click "VPN" on any cable card or use the VPN button in the toolbar. Select a probe location, and the system generates a temporary WireGuard configuration with a QR code. Scan the QR with the WireGuard app on your phone, or download the config file for your desktop. The tunnel activates instantly - no registration required.
WireGuard technology
We use WireGuard - the fastest and most modern VPN protocol. Unlike OpenVPN or IPSec, WireGuard adds minimal overhead (typically under 5ms latency). The entire protocol is ~4,000 lines of code (vs 100,000+ for OpenVPN), making it simple, auditable, and extremely fast. Keys are generated on-the-fly and are ephemeral - each connection gets a unique cryptographic keypair.
Use cases
Test cable routes yourself: connect to one of our probes and traceroute to Tokyo, and you will see the same hops our monitoring system detects. Verify anomalies: if GeoCables shows elevated latency on a cable, connect via VPN and run your own ping tests. Geographic perspective: see how the internet looks from another part of the world. Each probe sees different routing paths, different transit providers, different submarine cables.
Limits and security
Each VPN key is valid for 24 hours and limited to 10 GB of traffic. One active tunnel per user at a time. Keys are automatically cleaned up after expiration. No logs are kept beyond the technical minimum needed for key management. The VPN is designed for testing and research - not as a permanent proxy service.
Live Map & Real-Time
08Beyond the calculator and the health dashboard, GeoCables runs a live layer: a real-time world map, conflict-zone watch, a big-screen mode, and live indexes on the homepage.
Live map
The map at /live shows the monitored network as it moves: measurement traffic between probes, outages, events and alerts. Pick a preset at the top (Overview, Outage focus, Events, 24h replay, Conflict and more) or mix individual layers. The time scrubber at the bottom rewinds up to 90 days - press play to watch history unfold.
See it on the site →Conflict zones
The Conflict preset shows regions where strikes, shutdowns and infrastructure damage leave a measurable internet footprint - 45+ watched zones across several fronts, with show/hide switches per front. Zone status comes from our own multi-family measurements (anonymized); badges aggregate publicly reported strikes and alerts from the last 24 h; the Chronology panel lists deduplicated events for 48 h, and entries fresher than 30 minutes are highlighted. Background and methodology: /conflict-zones.
See it on the site →Big screen
/wall turns the live map into a fullscreen NOC-style display: dark map, auto-rotating scenes (world overview, probe network) and live counters. Add ?kiosk=1 for unattended screens. You will find it in the Live menu as "Big screen".
See it on the site →Your internet right now
The homepage block detects your approximate location by IP (cached, privacy-friendly), finds the nearest cable landing points, lists the submarine cables that most likely carry your traffic, and shows a live RTT measured from the closest probe.
See it on the site →Network latency index
One number answering "how fast is the network right now": the average of current round-trip times against each route's own 7-day norm, 100 = the usual level. Switch the zone - macro regions (Europe, Transatlantic, Asia-Pacific...) or a specific chokepoint (Suez, Batam, Taiwan...) - and press the i button for the exact formula. Live on the homepage and on /internet-latency.
See it on the site →ISP status, Pulse & Shutdowns
/outages shows the live status of major internet providers by country. /pulse is the network's daily rhythm - a live feed of checks, anomalies and events. /shutdowns tracks large-scale internet shutdowns and their measurable footprint.
See it on the site →Events, outages and shutdowns
09What is happening to the internet right now and what happened before: one feed, country pages, scheduled shutdowns and the cable incident archive.
Event feed
The /events page shows the last 30 days as a route through time: a day is a station, an event is a node. The node shape tells what happened (country, cable, land route), the fill tells how serious it is. Filters by event kind and a search by country or cable are at the top.
See it on the site →Country page and outage scene
/outages collects provider status by country. Each country has its own page with outage history, and each outage has a permanent address: what happened, which providers were hit, what share of addresses stopped answering, and a map scene that replays the outage over time.
See it on the site →Scheduled shutdowns
When a country drops off the network at the same hour many days in a row, it is not a fault but a shutdown on a schedule, usually for exams. Such events are labelled as scheduled. The /shutdowns page lists them by country and draws an hour grid for 30 days.
See it on the site →Cable incidents
The /incidents archive keeps every latency anomaly that opened an alert: when it was detected, how much the latency grew, how it ended. Each record has a permanent address and a small chart of measurements around the event. Records are grouped by region.
See it on the site →Maps
10All maps on the site look the same: a light base in the light theme, satellite imagery in the dark one. Only what is drawn on them differs.
Submarine cable map
/submarine-cable-map draws every active and planned cable in the world. Click a line to open the cable: landing points, length, year and current monitoring data.
See it on the site →Transit map
/transit-map shows how traffic travels between cities over land: lines are measured links, line colour is latency. Type a city in the search field and press Enter: the name stays in the field and the city gets a labelled ring on the map. A panel with its links and networks opens on the right.
See it on the site →Country resilience
The /resilience page answers how resilient a country is to a submarine cable cut. The score from 0 to 100 combines the number of cables, how spread out the landing stations are, and measured incidents over 180 days.
See it on the site →Data, API and widgets
11Everything we measure ourselves can be taken away: as a file, as a request, or as a ready card for your own site.
Open dataset
/dataset offers daily latency observations and detected routing events in CSV and JSON. Downloading is free; only attribution is required.
See it on the site →API
The /developers page describes a free read-only API: cable incidents with measured timelines, daily latency figures, live network status. No signup, up to 60 requests per minute, attribution required.
See it on the site →Widgets
/widgets builds a live card to embed on your site: country or cable status, or a map. Pick a type and copy one line of HTML. The card refreshes by itself.
See it on the site →Finding your way
12The site is large. A few things help you see where you are and where to go next.
A menu of three sections
The header has three sections. Explore: catalogues and maps, what exists. Live: what is happening now. Learn: research, this guide, methodology, data.
The “you are here” line
Under the header of every page there is a line: section, page, object. Clicking the section opens its menu, clicking the page takes you one level up. On the right of that line the link “How to use this page” leads to the right place in this guide.
Back to top, theme and language
On a long page a back-to-top button appears at the bottom right. The header switches the language (EN, RU, FR, ES) and the theme, light or dark. Your choice is remembered.
What's new
The site has versions. The /changes page lists what changed in each release in plain words. The version number is in the footer.
See it on the site →Ask a question
Did not find the answer here? Write via /contact: questions about data, bugs, suggestions. Every message is answered by a person.
See it on the site →