Cables: Undersea and cross-border?


Posted on June 8, 2017  /  0 Comments

So there was this article in a Myanmar newspaper:

Myanmar only has two undersea fibre-optic cables and two cross-border cables for its Internet traffic. By contrast regional leader Singapore has a total of 21 international fibre links, 15 of which are undersea and six cross-border. Malaysia has 17 links – 13 undersea and four cross-border; Thailand has 10 undersea and four cross-border; the Philippines has nine undersea and six cross-border; and Vietnam has five undersea and two cross-border cables. Cambodia lags behind with three undersea Internet fibre cables and one cross-border cable.

In South Asia, Bangladesh has two undersea and two cross-border, while Sri Lanka has seven undersea and four cross-border cables.

Dissemination of bad information is an occupational risk associated with blogging. I try not to.

So let us look at the above quote, focusing on the islands.

Singapore is an island. This island is connected to Malaysia by a causeway. So the six cross-border cables have to be going across the causeway to Malaysia. Now take Malaysia. Since it has a land border with Thailand, its total number of cross-border cables (that are not undersea) would have to be equal to, or greater than six. But according to the report, it has only four cross-border cables.

Now take another island: Sri Lanka. No causeways or land links. But according to the report, it has four cross-border tables that are not undersea.

I could go on.

I checked the Huawei Global Connectivity Report 2017. It is not the source of the above information.

This is a report based on poor-quality information.

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