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by cm2187 3095 days ago
I believe that until recently neither Azure or AWS had a datacenter in the UK. Cutting undersea cables between the UK and the US / Europe / Ireland could have some serious consequences in the UK, at the very least on the economy, possibly on its infrastructure (payment systems, communications, etc).

But aren't terrestrial cables more vulnerables than undersea cables? Cutting undersea cables require sophisticated technologies. Cutting terrestrial cables just requires a local guy with a map and some TNT. It's impossible to protect thousands of km of cables.

4 comments

Terrestial cables are easy to repair, in terms of hours. For undersea cables, this could take weeks or months, depending on location and wheather conditions.
There is much more redundancy in terrestrial cables (because they are vastly cheaper to lay), so they're much less of a single point of failure.
> Cutting terrestrial cables just requires a local guy with a map and some TNT.

The truth is much simpler, and less explosive, it's usually a JCB digger operated by the local water/gas/leccy company that causes mayhem.

Cutting undersea cables can be done with as little as a fishing boat and an anchor.