Madory says that there is a priority over whose cable is fixed first. The countries pay a premium to fix first. Once one of these vessels arrives on scene, it drops a hook to grab the cable that runs along the sea floor. When the cable is too thin in the deep ocean, it is pulled up onto the deck of the vessel where technicians can fix it. The cabling is not the strongest thing. It was lowered back into the water. Madory says that the process hasn't changed much in the 150 years or so that we've had submarine cables.
There are factors that can make the process more difficult. It's possible that internet cabling takes a back seat to saving lives, restoring power, and delivering vital food and water supplies in the event of a disaster in the country. The deeper the cable is, the harder it is to get up from the floor. The power lines that help keep the connection online may be damaged beyond repair. Madory says that Tonga is on the internet. You will have fewer options once you leave the core of the internet.
The internet outage shows how dependent the internet can be on a single point of failure. Alan Woodward, a professor of cybersecurity at the University of Surrey in the UK, says that it is one of those stories that puts the lie to the idea that the internet was designed to survive a nuclear war. Most of it is held together by chewing gum. It is difficult to design for volcanic explosions, but countries should try to maintain redundant connections through multiple undersea connections, and ideally they follow different routes so that a local incident won't affect multiple lines.
For a small nation of just over 100,000 people, the cost of redundantness is high. It is likely that the movement of the seabed would cause a fissure in the cable if it was laid on the other side of the island.
Andrew Bennett is an internet policy analyst at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. The UK or US isn't going to be like Tonga, but there are tensions and debate about things like undersea cables that are pushing us into a more fractious place. You don't want to end up in a place where you have cables for everyone but the allies.
Bennett suggests two options to bridge the gap. Satellite internet is being rolled out quickly and the satellite constellations are being launched into space. The other is to spend more money. He says that countries who can afford it should pay for it and give it to others. According to the institute, closing the global digital divide would cost less than 2% of the gross national income of the 30 countries that make up the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
It is a major disaster if 100,000 people are without internet for a long period of time. It shows the vulnerability of certain parts of the internet, particularly outside the rich Western world. Woodward says that the internet is not crumbling at the core. It is always going to be a little ragged around the edges.
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