The Cables that Connect the World

At the northeastern edge of La Línea de la Concepción, on a scrubby Mediterranean beach called El Burgo–Torrenueva, there is an old battlement-tower, La Torre Nueva, and not much else. It was part of the system of coastal watchtowers during the 16th century that would defend the area against the incursion of the Barbary corsairs. The coordinates are 36°12′36″N, 5°19′27″W. Walk the tideline and you would never know that buried two metres beneath the sand, a fibre-optic cable comes out of the sea here and turns into the internet. It’s the start of a line that runs across the Strait of Gibraltar to Ceuta, on the African coast, and on toward two continents. Nearly everything you do online that crosses an ocean passes through a cable like this, ending, in most cases, underneath a similarly unremarkable patch of coast. Note: Ceuta is an interesting place by itself, that has recently gained some attention and that would also make for an interesting write-up of its own. However, the tl;dr is…