Sharks like to bite things. All the things!
Via Wired (H/T Instapundit):
There are many, many things that can go wrong as you lay thousands of miles of fiber optic cable along the ocean’s floor. Earthquakes can rip things up, as can fishing hooks. But now we know of a new threat: Shark attacks.
According to Network World, Google Product Manager Dan Belcher told folks at a Google marketing event in Boston last week that Google ensures its cable is sheathed in a Kevlar-like protective coating to keep the sharks from chomping through the line. Turns out this is standard operating procedure among undersea cable-layers, who must take a number of steps to keep aquatic life from harming (or being harmed by) data cables.
We asked Google about this, and if they have any idea why sharks would want to eat fiber optic cables, but they had nothing to say. But apparently it’s a thing, as you can see in the video below.