Undersea internet cable in Norway damaged; antenna station provides unique support to polar-orbiting satellites; Just two days after UK defence chief said Russian submarines are threatening undersea network of internet cables

Operator of what is the world’s northernmost fiberoptic subsea cable, Space Norway, has located the disruption to somewhere between 130 to 230 kilometers from Longyearbyen in the area where the seabed goes from 300 meters down to 2700 meters in the Greenland Sea.

The error happened on Friday morning, January 7.

Svalbard Undersea Cable System is a twin submarine fiberoptic communication cable connecting Longyearbyen with Andøya north of Harstad in northern Norway.

The two cables are 1,375 and 1,339 km respectively, and Space Norway informs in a press release that there is good connection in the cable still working, but with the other broken there is no redundancy.

How the damaged has happened is not clear, it will be examined, Space Norway informs. A ocean-going cable-laying vessel would be required to repair the cable.

In addition to providing the settlement of Longyearbyen with internet broadband, the fiber optic cables serve the SvalSat park of more than 100 satellite antennas on a nearby mountain plateau.

SvalSat is today the world’s largest commercial ground station with worldwide customers. Its location at 78°N, halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, gives the station a unique position to provide all-orbit support to operators of polar-orbiting satellites.

Norway’s Minister of Justice and Public Security, Emilie Enger Mehl, says in a press release Sunday morning that her ministry follows the situation closely.

“I have been informed that an error has occurred on part of one of the two fiber connections between Svalbard and mainland Norway. Communication to and from Svalbard is still running as normal, even though one of the connections now has failed,” Enger Mehl says.

Back in November 2021 surveillance cables off the coast of Northern Norway, linked with the Norwegian Defense Department, mysteriously ‘disappeared’.

Russian submarines threatening undersea network of internet cables, says UK defence chief Sir Tony Radakin

The head of Britain’s armed forces is warning Russian submarines are threatening a crucial network of underwater cables that carry information around the world.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, who was appointed chief of the defence staff in October, said the undersea cables that transmit internet data are “the world’s real information system”.

Any attempt to damage them could be considered an “act of war”, he added.

Sir Tony – a former head of the Royal Navy – said there had been a “phenomenal increase in Russian submarine and underwater activity” in the last 20 years.

It meant Moscow could “put at risk and potentially exploit the world’s real information system, which is undersea cables that go all around the world.“

“That is where predominantly all the world’s information and traffic travels,” he added. “Russia has grown the capability to put at threat those undersea cables and potentially exploit those undersea cables.”

The Royal Navy has been tracking Russian submarine activity during that period.

A collision between a British Type 23 frigate, HMS Northumberland, and a Russian sub has sparked wider speculation about the extent of Russian cable-mapping activity.

So what’s going on up there? Norway wants to play with Russia against NATO? [The Barents Observer, SkyNews]

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