The Reason we Have Crappy Internet

Today, I discovered a sad truth. A sad, sad truth.

We had an internet problem last week that left all of the Middle-East and parts of Asia with very slow internet access, if any at all. Turns out the problem was a ship with it's anchor down near Egypt managed to sever an internet cable.

Is that really all it takes to paralyse internet access for a whole continent? I was pretty sure it wasn't, and there was probably something else going on there. Anyhow, while joking about the whole situation a few days ago, I drew a little diagram of the world and how all the countries were connected to the internet. The Middle-East, however, had one single connection to the whole thing, and if cut, everyone would be internetless:

Now this was supposed to be a joke; it's funny and all, yes, we're the only set of countries not really connected properly, ha ha, any sort of problem with one sole cable can screw us up, ha ha.

So while checking out Redbelt's page, I came across a diagram of how the world's internet underwater cables were connected, and man, was I in for a shock. We REALLY ARE connected by a single path. Bloody hell:


That's pretty messed up, huh?