Internet Investigation

Documents

Google doesn't hesitate to break its piggy bank to secure its enormous internet traffic across the world. After announcing, in January 2018, the deployment of a private submarine cable, named Curie, between the West Coast of the United States and Chile (operational in 2019), the American giant will lay a new cable, starting from Virginia Beach, on the East Coast of the United States, to reach "the French Atlantic coast". Its name? Dunant, "in tribute to Henri Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross". The cable, with a lifespan of 15 to 25 years, measures ##### km long and will have a mass of ### tons. It is equipped with repeaters placed every 100km, to amplify the signal and avoid losses. It will have cost several hundred million dollars.

Today, GAFAM realize 50% of submarine cable investments.

(according to labribune.fr)

Questions

1. What do the letters of the acronym GAFAM stand for? What do GAFAM represent?
2. On the same model, who are NATU? BATX?
3. What are fiber optic submarine cables used for?
4. Using the data available on the website Submarine Cable Map, find the missing information in document 1:
   1. What is the length of the "Dunant" cable laid by Google?
   2. Knowing that the mass of one kilometer of cable equals approximately 700 kg (or 0.7 tons), what is the total mass of the "Dunant" cable?
   3. How many repeaters are installed in total on the "Dunant" cable?
5. How many submarine cables are directly connected to France?
6. According to documents 3 and 4, why do we need more submarine cables over the years?
7. By what factor has global internet traffic been multiplied between 1992 and 2022?
8. In your opinion, why do GAFAM invest so much money in cables? You can use an internet search to help.