An animated slider graph about how the continents have been linked by undersea Internet cables in the past decade.

Here are the areas that have seen major cable network additions:

1999 – 2002: South America
2002 – 2004: East Asia, Pacific
2004 – 2007: Arabian Sea: India, Iran, and Red Sea

The countries are coloured according to their changing broadband subscriber density during this time. It’s disappointing to see how India has remained stagnant throughout.

This reminded me about the delightful Senator Ted Stevens “series of tubes” incident, where the politician displayed an overly simplistic understanding of how the Internet works.