Subsea fiber-optic cables carry roughly 95% of intercontinental data traffic, making them critical infrastructure for finance, cloud computing, military communications, scientific research, and ordinary internet use. Satellites attract more public attention, but they do not carry the bulk of global communications. A single modern fiber pair can transmit data at terabits per second. A transoceanic cable may contain 12, 16, or 24 fiber pairs, with total design capacity measured in hundreds ...