We have all been aware of the fragility of our economy and what could possibly happen if it sustained a catastrophic collapse.

The economy is heavily dependent on the reliability of the internet, which we take for granted as everlasting.

Consider this train of thought : demand for the Internet will increase so Much and so quickly in the near future that the fiber optic cables that make up the physical Internet may not be able to handle transferring increasing amounts of data and at the speed at which we demand it. 

Are cable companies prepared to lay increasing amounts of fiber optic cables to meet increasing global demand? Can they do it in time?

If so how will that affect pricing for Internet consumers?

And what if demand for Internet data increases so much so quickly that the it causes failure of fiber optic cables and cable companies fail?

What will happen if the Internet breaks?!

How do we prepare for catastrophic Internet collapse?

Satellites.

I worked for a few companies that built and provided the equipment and software used in the Enterprise Internet Provider business side. I worked in the business for 12 years. In other words, not the companies that provide Internet service to us pions but the companies that actually owned and ran their segment of the actual Internet on a statewide, US wide and worldwide basis. Some of them are now one in the same. I worked on the development side testing and supporting Global Internet Applications and Internet Security Applications that ran on the routers, switches and servers. Later on I tested DSL Hardware and then eventually went on to testing and development of Storage Area Networking Hardware in the Enterprise Business side. In other words what we now call the cloud. I mentioned I supported the software I worked on. Which meant I was on call (with pager) 24 hours a day and my on call shift would sometimes extend up to 2 weeks at a time. If things went down I was called as a third level support member. In other words, after the level 1 and 2 support engineers failed to solve the issue. If called I would immediately go into the office, and if it could not be fixed in the office I would travel with the developers to the site. The first hardware company I worked for guaranteed we would be on site within 24 hours if the issue with our software could not be fixed within 4 hours.

In the first 5 years I was in the Enterprise IP business side I was only called on 3 times. And one time I had to fly out to RTP North Carolina from SoCal. The Internet is mirrored and all equipment is duplicated at different sites. So if one state/segment went down the mirror picked up the load. There is always enough equipment dedicated to keeping the Internet running under almost all segment down conditions. When something does go down it usually means somewhere there was a single point of failure that was not taken into account for. So if the load increases to the point that one link can't handle the second will take up the slack. But before that happens whoever owns that segment is already installing more equipment in order to be able to handle all traffic with a single link in case one goes down. There are always plans in effect to keep things running. Believe me, the companies that own this equipment already know how much bandwidth they are going to need 5 years from now and are already planning for it.

Also, all data centers have backup generators if power goes out. Because, the one point of failure we have here in the US is the electrical grid. If the Internet goes down, most communications will cease. We won't die. HAM radios will rule. Satellite could be used by those (US Govt) who have their own link that is not dependent on the commercial providers. So how likely is it that the Internet can go down? Here in Hawaii quite possible. I was called into the office once when the whole south half of Florida went down because the hardware they were using crashed and their mirror was never tested. Our software was blamed but in the end I didn't have to go out there because it was a hardware/IOS issue. Anyway, we will be disrupted and pissed off. And we will be playing a lot of solitaire. But the end of the world? Doubt it. I would be more worried about our electrical grid and not having electricity.

The fact that so much of the US economy, education system, and business communications depend on the Internet is exactly why the Feds want to control it as a public utility. 
They see the risk, and allowing the private sector to prevent a massive outage on their own is unacceptable to the government.

Cost and access in an emergency are arguments against the Government taking it over.

I'm not as concerned about the Internet being unavailable.  I'm worried about it being used against us to access banking, utility, government, law enforcement, medical, and operations information for businesses and critical infrastructure.

Once the systems are hacked, we'll still be using the faculties and services they control ... until "they" cause something bad to happen...

The fact that so much of the US economy, education system, and business communications depend on the Internet is exactly why the Feds want to control it as a public utility. 
They see the risk, and allowing the private sector to prevent a massive outage on their own is unacceptable to the government.

Cost and access in an emergency are arguments against the Government taking it over.

I'm not as concerned about the Internet being unavailable.  I'm worried about it being used against us to access banking, utility, government, law enforcement, medical, and operations information for businesses and critical infrastructure.

Once the systems are hacked, we'll still be using the faculties and services they control ... until "they" cause something bad to happen...

Keep in mind that with government control always comes loss of freedom and higher costs. So if the banks that deal with firearm companies suddenly find they no longer have reliable access to the Internet, what do you think they will do? They will no longer have Internet access which means phone access, ATM access and alarm/security access. Think it can't happen? Operation Choke Point comes to mind. And of course I ask anyone to name one service that the government has taken over from the private sector that it has lowered costs without any unintended consequences.

And of course I ask anyone to name one service that the government has taken over from the private sector that it has lowered costs without any unintended consequences.

+1.

I was just thinking the same thing.  NOTHING that the government has taken over from private industry has been more efficient nor cost effective.  Efficiency & cost effectiveness is the antithesis of government!

HECO was having power outages this last couple of days. I know that lots of businesses were affected with downed Internet service. Imagine if it was for an extended time period.

POS was down at the NEX yesterday.

POS was down at the NEX yesterday.

president obama was at the NEX?

you know, if there's too much traffic, the system can just throttle itself.

too much traffic wont cause anything to collapse if they know it's coming.  yes, you can DDOS a server, but it takes a whole lot, and i'd imagine in this scenario, we're more likely to see bandwidth issues than an "internet collapse".  the cabling and infrastructure isnt going to break the interenet, you'd have to take down the servers themselves.  adding more fiber optics wond stop a server from getting DDOSed any more than having too little bandwidth will blow a server.

i would imagine that an earthquake or ensuing tsunami could destroy or at least compromise deep sea fiber optic cables...


what other scenario could cause the internet to completely collapse so that no one has access other than through satellites?  Natural disasters? hackers?

i would imagine that an earthquake or ensuing tsunami could destroy or at least compromise deep sea fiber optic cables...


what other scenario could cause the internet to completely collapse so that no one has access other than through satellites?  Natural disasters? hackers?

that wouldnt collapse the internet either.  as long as the servers are up, the internet is up.  if a bunch of cables get destroyed, all that does is cut off some people from their normal access routing.  we'd still have over the air access on mobile networks, satelite access, and we could also still establish alternate routes unless ALL our hardline connections were severed. 

we'd lose bandwidth, not the internet itself. 

that wouldnt collapse the internet either.  as long as the servers are up, the internet is up.  if a bunch of cables get destroyed, all that does is cut off some people from their normal access routing.  we'd still have over the air access on mobile networks, satelite access, and we could also still establish alternate routes unless ALL our hardline connections were severed. 

we'd lose bandwidth, not the internet itself.

how much is "some"?  is it enough to cause panic?

how much is "some"?  is it enough to cause panic?

Depends on how old they are. If one teenager loses their Internet connection and it is enough to cause panic. 

how much is "some"?  is it enough to cause panic?

no, because like i said, it would only cut off your normal routing.  you could still establish connections through other routes (instead of going through the pacific, you'd just have to go back through Asia and europe, for example.  it would take things longer to respond and load, but the internet wouldnt be locked up).  and mobile networks would still exist. 

i highly doubt that people would riot because the internet is slower, but still working. 

The Internet for the most part is made up of servers, switches and routers. It is a backbone that connects all the other data centers together all over the world. This backbone is mirrored (duplicated) all over the world. The likelihood of any large areas going down is highly unlikely since it is owned and run by the free world. Some countries have a single connection to the net so that they can control content to their citizens. It is more likely a country like this could go down. Smaller companies like telcoms and cable companies (unless they own a segment of the backbone) also have limited connections to the backbone and they could lose a link and a portion of a state (Or more likely just a portion of customers) can go down. But again, with all the duplication of equipment it is all highly unlikely. Underwater fiber optic cables are quite vulnerable. But they obviously lay multiple cables so if one breaks they have others. Here are some articles documenting the outages in Hawaii over the last few years. And the last article is quite interesting to me as it documents the lengths to which the British banking system (through British Telcom BT) to build extra redundancy to the U.S. Banking and financial markets just in case.

http://bigislandnow.com/2015/02/11/landline-cell-internet-outages-in-west-hawaii/

http://m.english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/science-it/112086/fiber-optical-undersea-cable-breaks-again--internet-service-remains-stable.html#

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/20100728_Severed_deep-sea_cable_disrupts_service.html?id=99449454

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20150327_internet_outages_reveal_gaps_in_broadband_infrastructure.html?id=297874611

http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/cable-outage-exposes-islandwide-flaw

http://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-the-Transatlantic-internet-cable-broke