The Net and the Nation State: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Internet Governance by Uta Kohl

Author:Uta Kohl [Kohl, Uta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2017-04-30T03:00:00+00:00

Geographies of the Internet’s Backbones: Fibre Optics

One example of the spatiality of the internet is the geography of the primary technology of digital communications, fibre optics. Fibre optics are long, thin, flexible, highly transparent rods of quartz glass (or less commonly, plastic) about the thickness of a human hair that can transmit voice, video, or data traffic at the speed of light (299,792 km/sec.); because light oscillates much more rapidly than other wavelengths, such lines can carry much more information than other types of telecommunications. Modern fibre cables contain up to 1,000 fibres each and are ideal for high-capacity, point-to-point transmissions. Moreover, fibre cables do not corrode or conduct electricity, which renders them immune to electromagnetic disturbances such as thunderstorms. The transmission capacities of fibre optics grew rapidly in the late twentieth century as the microelectronics revolution unfolded. In the late twentieth century, financial services firms were at the forefront of the construction of a vast, seamless integrated global network of fibre cable because they allowed the deployment of electronic funds transfer systems, which comprise the nervous system of the international financial economy, allowing banks to move capital around at a moment’s notice, arbitrage interest rate differentials, take advantage of favourable exchange rates, and avoid political unrest. Fibre carriers are heavily favoured by large corporations in large part because of the high degrees of security and redundancy this medium offers. Although their transmission costs have also declined, satellites have failed to match the latest leaps in fibre optics capacity and can compete with transoceanic submarine cables only with great difficulty; today, 94 per cent of all international telecommunications is transmitted via cables.6 As their competitive edge has eroded, satellite providers have been steadily forced to serve markets in low-density regions, relatively low-profit arenas compared to the lucrative high-volume, corporate data transmissions market.

The network of fibre lines linking the world constitutes the nervous system of the global economy, linking cities, markets, suppliers, clients around the world, and the backbone of internet traffic (Figure 10.1). The geography of global fibre networks centers primarily upon two distinct telecommunications markets crossing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, connecting two of the major engines of the world economy, North America and East Asia.7 In 1988, in conjunction with MCI and British Telecommunications, AT&T initiated the world’s first trans-oceanic fibre optic cable, Trans-Atlantic Telecommunications, which could carry 40,000 telephone calls simultaneously. The trans-Atlantic line was the first of a much broader series of globe-girdling fibre lines that AT&T erected in conjunction with a variety of local partners. Because large corporate users are the primary clients of such networks, it is no accident that the original and densest web of fibre lines connects London and New York, a pattern that extends historically to the telegraph and telephone.

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