This must be one of the coolest and most interesting articles on light I have ever read :) Awesome.

Wow, what a really nice comment, thanks a million, and it's so nice to know that somebody read it and enjoyed it.

Btw I had no idea about the existence of the cables attached to the ocean floor.

Ya, it's pretty crazy to find out when you never knew it before. It all started back in the 1850s, when the transatlantic telegraph cable was laid between Europe and America, though obviously this was not for data or internet traffic, which was over 100 years away from being a thing, nor was it for telephone calls which would not come along until Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, no it was for telegraphs which were one of the earliest forms of technical communication - prior to this it was human runners and carrier pigeons that we relied on, neither of which can span oceans and seas promptly or reliably. Those first cables were made of copper only and so electrical connectivity was all that was possible and that does not scale well for what was to come. It could look after telephone calls alright, but was nowhere near capable of carrying the data that the internet was about to unleash in the 1990s and beyond.

So, 1988 TAT-8 was deployed, this was the first ever fiber subsea cable. A cconsortium of companies came together which included AT&T, France Télécom, and British Telecom. A feat of engineering at the time, this fibre cable was able to carry 280 Mbits per second, which is around a quarter of what my current home broadband is capable of today! Things have certainly moved on!!

And finally to answer the How.... They use huge expensive boats, under water plough/burial machines, massive cable rotation domes/turntables, diverse teams of Optical engineers, Oceanographers and Power System engineers, Geologists, Geo-Physicists and more. It is a hugely costly and time consuming endevour, but it is literally what allows the internet to work and continue to grow worldwide. Even to just load the ship with the fibre it will lay on the sea floor takes around 1 month of round the clock work and preparation, and then it begins its slow voyage across the sea or ocean span it is looking to cover, slowly ploughing the sea bed and burying the cable, as it goes.

Rather than wax lyrical more about it here, this video gives a great and succinct overview of what is involved. I think I might write another post about it at some stage and give it a better title, as I feel this was missed by most people, except you! So thanks for the support as always man.