They all travel over fiber optic cables about the size of garden hoses snaking along the sea floor. Over 95% of data shared internationally travels through a network of about 500 or so undersea cables, which could circle the Earth over 32 times if laid end-to-end. A critical aspect of deploying these cables is determining their burial depth, which ensures protection from. Fibre-optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) is a 28,000-kilometre-long (17,398 mi; 15,119 nmi) fibre optic mostly- submarine communications cable that connects the United Kingdom, Japan, India, and many places in between. Burial depth depends on the seabed environment, water depth, and potential risks from human activities or natural hazards.
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