fiber-optics
Mapping the Internet
July 16, 2012: 5:00 AM ETWe don't think much about where the Net comes from. But a close look at where it's going will tell us where the world is headed.
By Andrew Blum, contributor
Unspooling fiber-optic cable that will soon be laid on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean
FORTUNE -- The global economy has arranged itself around a short list of dominant cities, the endpoints for movement of all kinds: goods, people, money, and, increasingly, packets of digital information. These packets -- some trillion bytes a second -- travel primarily as light through fiber-optic cable. E-mails, images, streaming movies, and money: millions and millions every millisecond.
We take it for granted that the Internet, as much as any city, has a physical reality. Tracing the movement of a packet of information throughout this geography of fiber-optic cables and data centers casts the global economy in a different light. In places, the packets piggyback on existing telecommunications systems, traveling through the same capitals of finance and trade that have long been at the center of things. Elsewhere, the Internet disrupts and reshapes the traditional endpoints of movement. By looking closely at our world's digital infrastructure, we can discern broader lessons about emerging economies. By understanding how information moves and how networks are constructed, we can see where the Internet is headed, and where the dominant cities of tomorrow might appear.
This story is from the July 23, 2012 issue of Fortune.
More: Mapping the Internet
Intro
Wiring America
Undersea cables
Financial hubs
Emerging markets
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Mapping the Internet: Financial hubs
Time is still money in the world of high finance. But dollars are now measured in milliseconds.
By Andrew Blum, contributor
FORTUNE -- When, in 1924, the Western Union Telegraph Co. went looking for land for a new headquarters in lower Manhattan, it had strict requirements: The building had to be close not only to the New York Stock Exchange and the commodities exchanges but also to the company's existing operations MORE
Jul 16, 2012 5:00 AM ETPosted in: Data, Data Communications, fiber-optics, finance, global economy, Internet, networks, The Chartist, World Wide Web -
Mapping the Internet: Emerging markets
For developing nations that can't afford high-cost infrastructure, the solution may be simple: Cut the cord.
By Benjamin Schenkel, contributor
FORTUNE -- It's one thing to bring fiber-optic cable to the coast of a landmass; it's quite another to then build that network into the interior of that landmass. Without much infrastructure already in place, the cost of new broadband cables is extremely high. The result is a bitter irony: Those MORE
Jul 16, 2012 5:00 AM ETPosted in: emerging markets, fiber-optics, finance, global economy, Internet, networks, The Chartist, World Wide Web -
Mapping the Internet: Wiring America
The U.S. has a long way to go before it becomes the world's most connected nation.
By Andrew Blum, contributor
FORTUNE -- The Internet was born in the U.S., but we can hardly claim to have the greatest percentage of citizens online (in fact, we are 23rd, behind Slovakia). Why is that? We're accustomed to thinking the problem is the "last mile," meaning the connection between our phone or cable company's MORE
Jul 16, 2012 5:00 AM ETPosted in: fiber-optics, global economy, Internet, networks, The Chartist, U.S. Internet, World Wide Web -
Mapping the Internet: Undersea cables
Data has a long way to travel across the World Wide Web. It needs a lot of help getting around.
By Andrew Blum, contributor
FORTUNE -- If the Internet is a global phenomenon, it's because there are fiber-optic cables underneath the ocean. Light goes in on one shore and comes out the other, making these tubes the fundamental conduit of information throughout the global village. To make the light travel enormous MORE
Jul 16, 2012 5:00 AM ETPosted in: fiber-optics, global economy, Internet, networks, The Chartist, undersea cables, World Wide Web
