Fiber optics play a key role in Wide Area Networks. With very small exceptions, most of the links that compose WANs are composed of optical fibers. As the demand for bandwidth continues to grow, network operators and large cloud companies continue to deploy new optical fiber links, both on the ground and accross the oceans. The latest announcement came from Microsoft and Facebook. Together, they have commissioned a new fiber optical link between Virginia Beach, Virginia (USA) and Bilbao, Spain. The landing points chosen for this fiber are a bit unusual since many of the fiber optic cables that cross the Atlantic Ocean land in the UK for obvious geographical reasons. This new cable brings 160 Terabits/sec of capacity and adds diversity to the fiber routes between America and Europe. This diveristy is beneficial against unexpected failures but also against organisations that captures Internet traffic by tapping optical fibers as revealed by Edward Snowden.

Additional information about the many other optical fibers that have been laid under the oceans may be found in the detailed maps collected by Telegeography. Datacenterknowledge.com published recently a nice summary of the submarine cables funded by cloud companies.