The Internet Under the Sea

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What powers the global internet? The answer might surprise you: not satellites, but hundreds of thin cables that run along the ocean floor. They’re an absolutely essential technology that’s also incredibly fragile — so fragile that in the beginning, most people thought they couldn't possibly work. Today on the show: the story of a man who did think they could work… and the lengths he went to to try and connect the world.

Guests:

Bill Burns, former BBC broadcast engineer and founder of atlantic-cable.com

Cyrus Field IV, great grandson of Cyrus Field

Allison Marsh, professor at the University of South Carolina and historian of technology

Ben Roberts, strategic advisor on Subsea Cable Economics for Connectivity at UNICEF who has been building cable network in Africa for the past two decades.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from the Dateline original podcast, Deadly Engagement.
0:04.7	Join Josh Mankowicz as he tells a twisted story of sex, lies, and betrayal that will keep you guessing until the very end.
0:11.8	Search Deadly Engagement to follow now.
0:16.9	Y'allah, Sittd, your God. On the evening. On the evening of February 18th, 204, two ballistic missiles were fired at the Rubimar,
0:41.2	a massive cargo ship that's longer than the Washington Monument.
0:45.8	It was just the latest series of attacks by the Houthis,
0:49.0	an Iranian-backed rebel group operating in Yemen that's been firing on commercial ships in the Red Sea.
0:55.0	The Houthis were trying to disrupt trade in the Red Sea, one of the busiest shipping routes in the world.
1:01.1	It's a passage between continents that reduces the time that it takes a ship to travel from Europe to Asia considerably.
1:10.2	So for the Red Sea, a huge amount of freight is traveling that way.
1:14.2	Dozens of ships pass through these waters daily, along with billions of dollars worth of cargo,
1:19.7	and the Rubimar was one of those ships.
1:26.8	Yeah. And the crew abandoned ship, dropped anchor because they were abandoning ship,
1:45.0	and then the ship drifted around on its own.
1:47.0	Being pushed around aimlessly by sea currents and wind.
1:51.0	... Then, less than a week later, at the bottom of the Red Sea, something broke. Red Sea, something broke.
2:25.9	Internet traffic that is going from Europe to Asia.
2:32.6	I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is not in service at this time.
2:36.2	And then also the other place that was impacted was Europe to Africa,
2:37.4	to the east coast of Africa. I did this presentation.
2:38.6	I dug into the numbers, and as you can see here,
2:42.1	Joey, it looks like it's frozen.
	...

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