NATO plans to move the world’s Internet from undersea cables to satellites
Due to rising geopolitical tensions, there are increasing fears that terrorist countries such as Russia or North Korea could attack undersea cables, disrupting the Internet and digital communications. Such cases have already occurred: in February 2024, Houthi rebels from Yemen are believed to have damaged undersea cables in the Red Sea, which carried 17% of the world’s Internet traffic. And in October, Sweden said that the damage to the submarine cable in the Baltic Sea connecting Estonia and Sweden was deliberate.
To prepare for such situations, NATO is helping to fund a project to study alternative ways to transmit data in the event of submarine cable failure. Internet traffic is expected to be redirected via satellites.
The project involves scientists from the United States, Iceland, Sweden, and Switzerland. Their goal is to develop a system for automatically switching traffic from submarine cables to satellite networks in the event of an attack or damage to the cables due to natural disasters.
NATO considers the project promising. The Science for Peace and Security Program provided a grant of $433,600 for this project, which has a total cost of $2.5 million. Research institutes also contribute.
According to NATO Program Advisor Eyüp Kuntai Turmus, the project will begin “very soon.” However, before a full-fledged working system can be created, the researchers will need two years to test prototypes, resolve international regulatory issues and complex legal aspects.
Sweden and Iceland, in particular, are interested in the project. Icelandic law professor Mar Magnusson said: “It would only take three or four bombs to completely disconnect Iceland and its communications.”
The project involves the American company Viasat Inc. Also involved are the space company Sierra Space Corp. and the Icelandic cybersecurity company Syndis.
One of the project’s objectives is to improve methods for detecting threats to submarine cables in order to redirect traffic in a timely manner. Currently, cable network operators can detect cable faults to within a kilometer, while the project aims to reduce this figure to a meter.
NATO reports that almost all of the organization’s Internet traffic, as well as financial transaction data worth about $10 trillion, is transmitted via submarine cables.
The consequences of the submarine cables’ failure became apparent in March, when a large-scale Internet outage hit West and Central Africa.
The awareness of the threat to underground cables is not limited to NATO. The European Commission has recently warned of the need to improve the safety and reliability of submarine cables in light of the escalating international situation.
