I used to work on distributed systems, and network partitions were a frequent enough occurrence that they weren’t considered an extraordinary event. By that, I mean that we wouldn’t page during network partitions because it was still considered normal system operation. Our design was designed from the ground up to consider network partitions as a frequent and normal operational state.
What we did do is watch SLAs. If the network partition continued for too long, then our data quality would degrade over time. So we would page based on data quality.
I don’t know the answer to the actual question you asked, I would be curious to know, too.
Several of the ships have also gone to / from ruzzian ports and behaved strangely, for example zig zagged over the cable before, turned off the transponder, drifted around etc. which ships do not normally do.
Suddenly, cable breaks in the Baltic Sea are 26 times higher than in the rest of the world, it can not be dismissed as "accidents". These cables have not broken by chance, according to experts, but this is a deliberate act.
« Between 2007 and 2010, 53 telecoms faults were recorded around the UK, 19 of which were caused by anchors »
« Various modes of fishing involving placement of heavy gear on the seabed result in 50 to 100 faults a year, typically in water depths shallower than 1500m »
from https://www.iscpc.org/documents/?id=201
You could easily find other sources and statistics.
If you have never been at sea, it may sound extraordinary that an anchor or a fishing net could by chance damage a cable, but you would be quite far from the truth. You could read this report on one case about a ship dragging anchor over a cable: https://www.marineinsight.com/shipping-news/operator-of-ship... and complete it with video from youtube of how life looks like in a cargo ship under a storm, to form a better picture of what it's like.
Also, all of the investigations on recent cases that's been pushed on top of the press for some reason, concluded on accidental damage. As always, it is recommanded to read professional newssources rather than political ones. For instance, you could search for "site:www.marineinsight.com cable damage"
Finally, I can see how all this noise can be used by NATO to justify strengthening their presence in the baltic see, but I fail to see the advantage for Russia. Let's be clear, I'm certain there are many russian agents in the west trying to sabotage west politics and mess with public opinions etc... but creating a few more incidents of cable damage on the baltic sea? How is that helping exactly? The disruption that could be caused is probably less than the cost of the seized ship.
For such a obviously political topic, believing that there exist an unadulterated pathway for information to flow from an event happening at the bottom of the sea up to your favorite internet news corporation seams uterly silly.
To summarize the article: On average, 199 cable faults per year from 2010-2023. Two thirds of these faults are caused by external forces like fishing vessels. Most cable faults are not made public. The preliminary data from 2024 suggests slightly more publicly disclosed faults, but nothing extraordinary. It is hard to detect the physical cause of cable damage. One likely cause is inexperienced crews on poorly maintained ships.
Personally, I do not believe all the cable faults in the Baltic sea are pure accidents. Russia (and China) have found the "perfect" way to test how we react and play their games. This testing is nothing new and it has happened before in many forms. It is likely that we have not even noticed some of the testing or they are not made public.
[1] https://blog.telegeography.com/is-it-sabotage-unraveling-the...