The laying of submarine cables has explodd in the last decade due to the entry of large platforms (basically Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft) and Chinese companies (Huawei Marine, China Mobile, China Telecom) into the market. This might appear to be beneficial to the operation of the entire Internet, as it expands the installd capacity of the network, increases bandwidth, and enables alternative paths for packet switching.
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But this is not necessarily the case: the cables laid by the platforms make up private networks for the exclusive flow of their own content: a parallel and India Mobile Database private channel to the “public internet” as we have known it. Already in 2019, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Amazon ownd or leasd more than half of the underwater bandwidth—and that proportion is estimatd to have risen sharply during the pandemic—while Chinese companies ownd about.
Exponential increase in traffic
Google currently owns approximately 9% of all kilometers of submarine cables. As far as Latin America is concernd, Google completd the installation WS Numbers of Curie in 2019, the first submarine cable to reach Chile in more than 20 years, which runs from California. Thus, it joins Malbec and Tannat, cables that connect Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, which are ownd by Facebook and Google respectively.
