Collaborative Research: CNS Core: Medium: On the Criticality of the Submarine Cable Network

Ninety-nine percent of all international data is carried by a fiber cable network at the bottom of the world’s oceans. This submarine cable network (SCN) consists of hundreds of cables stretching over 1 million kilometers, connects nearly every region in the world, serves as the operational backbone of global services, and closes connectivity gaps in the world’s underserved areas.

Yet, despite its impressive scale, very little is known about the SCN’s broader characteristics and its role in the global Internet. This collaborative project brings together researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin, Madison to develop a thorough understanding of the criticality of the submarine cable network in context.

This research effort will: (1) define a methodology for the analysis of the SCN criticality across regions, applications, and uses, (2) design and build a SCN observatory that embodies this methodology, and (3) conduct analyses of criticality in a range of contexts from country-specific to third-party service dependencies to environmental threats. The goals of this work are to advance the foundational understanding of the SCN and to create data sets, metrics, methods, and tools that will enhance performance, robustness, and manageability.

An improved understanding of the SCN and its critical role in the public Internet has a broad interest, from the millions of users that rely on these systems for their social, political, economic, and media exchanges, to the policymakers, regulators, operators, and entities that decide on new infrastructure deployment. The tools developed and the data we collect over the course of this project will be made available to the community.

The findings, techniques, and tools developed in this project, including related course materials, will be made available at https://www.cs.aqualab.edu/projects/Critical-SCN. The site will be maintained for at least one year past the ending of the project.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.