East Africa has enjoyed high-speed internet access since 2009

Discussion:  An anchor was dropped on to fiber-optic cables off of the shore of Kenya this past weekend.  This is going to cause East African high-speed internet access to be severely disrupted for the next two weeks.  After the fiber-optic cables arrived in Africa in 2009, internet subscriptions almost doubled from 1.8 million to 3.1 million over a 12-month period.  The incident brings to light the possible fragility of our information technology infrastructure.

Source:  BBC News

Date:  February 27, 2012

Link:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17179544

Discussion Questions:

• How are underwater fiber-optic cables located?
• How are fiber-optic cables repaired?