What Next | Daily News and Analysis TBD | The AWS Outage is Only the Beginning
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Oct 24, 2025 In this engaging discussion, Samanth Subramanian, a journalist and author specializing in undersea cables, dives into the fragility of our internet infrastructure highlighted by the recent AWS outage. He explains how centralized cloud systems create vulnerabilities and traces the history of undersea cables from colonial times to modern investments. Samanth also discusses threats to these cables, including geopolitical risks and sabotage, and offers practical solutions for enhancing global connectivity. Should we be worried? Yes, as the internet's fragility affects us all.
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Centralization Creates Single Points Of Failure
- The internet's decentralization ideal has shifted to concentrated physical hubs like northern Virginia data centers and cable landing sites.
- Those concentrated hubs create acute single points of vulnerability for global connectivity.
Tech Giants Now Shape Undersea Networks
- Big tech firms (Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft) now fund many new undersea cables themselves.
- That shifts physical internet control toward a few U.S. companies with geopolitical influence.
Tonga's Cable Snap And Its Immediate Toll
- An undersea volcanic eruption near Tonga snapped the island's sole international cable, cutting the country off.
- Residents lost ATMs, cell alerts, and many 'analog' services that rely on internet connectivity.
