深度文章系列 01 • 基礎知識 • 海底電纜
Article Series 01 • Fundamentals • Submarine Cables
我們活在一個「無線」的時代——Wi-Fi、4G、5G，訊號彷彿在空氣中自由流動。但這個印象是個美麗的幻覺。事實上，超過 95% 的國際網路流量並非透過衛星傳輸，而是流經海底那些沉默的電纜。每一通跨國電話、每一筆跨境金融交易、每一個從海外伺服器載入的網頁，都在用海底電纜。
全球金融市場每天透過海底電纜進行的交易金額超過 10 兆美元。如果這些電纜突然中斷，不是某個地區會斷網而已——全球經濟都可能陷入混亂。
We live in a "wireless" age — Wi-Fi, 4G, 5G, signals seeming to flow freely through the air. But that impression is a beautiful illusion. In reality, more than 95% of international internet traffic doesn't travel via satellite — it flows through silent cables on the ocean floor. Every international call, every cross-border financial transaction, every webpage loading from an overseas server uses submarine cables.
Global financial markets process more than $10 trillion in daily transactions through submarine cables. If these cables were suddenly cut, it wouldn't just disconnect a region — the global economy could descend into chaos.
海底電纜的外觀看起來就像一條粗纜繩——實際上，在淺水區直徑約 70 毫米，在深海中只有約 17 毫米。但它的內部卻是精密工程的結晶，層層結構各司其職：
這整條電纜由專用的海纜佈放船（cable ship）在海底慢慢鋪設，速度大約每小時 6 至 10 公里。鋪設一條連接兩大洲的電纜，往往需要數週乃至數月。
A submarine cable looks like a thick rope — about 70mm in diameter in shallow water, just 17mm in the deep sea. But inside is precision engineering, with each layer serving a specific purpose:
The entire cable is laid by specialized cable ships at about 6–10 km/h. Laying a cable connecting two continents can take weeks to months.
電纜裡的光纖以「光脈衝」的形式傳遞資料。現代海底電纜的單條纖維，傳輸速度可達每秒數十 Tbps（兆位元）——相當於同時傳輸數百萬部 4K 電影。整條電纜可能包含數十對光纖，總容量達數百 Tbps。
由於光在光纖中傳輸時會逐漸衰減，每隔約 50–100 公里需要一個中繼器（Repeater）來放大訊號。這些中繼器依靠電纜中的銅導體供電，而電力來自兩端的陸地站。一條跨太平洋電纜可能有超過 300 個中繼器。
The fiber inside cables transmits data as light pulses. A single modern fiber strand can carry tens of Tbps — equivalent to simultaneously streaming millions of 4K movies. A cable may contain dozens of fiber pairs, with total capacity of hundreds of Tbps.
Because light attenuates as it travels through fiber, repeaters are needed every 50–100 km to amplify the signal. These repeaters are powered via the copper conductor in the cable, with electricity supplied from shore stations at each end. A transpacific cable may have over 300 repeaters.
台灣作為島嶼，與外部世界的所有數位聯繫幾乎完全仰賴海底電纜。台灣目前擁有 14 條國際海底電纜及 10 條國內海纜（連接外離島）。這些電纜所承載的，不只是 Netlflix 串流或 LINE 訊息——更是台灣半導體出口訂單、金融市場資料、軍事通訊與政府指揮系統。
但問題不只是斷網。海底電纜的維修極為耗時——2023 年馬祖斷纜事件，修復花了近 50 天。而且全球的海底電纜修復船數量極為有限，一旦多條電纜同時受損，修復隊列將無比漫長。
在戰略層面，海底電纜是台灣「數位韌性」最薄弱的環節。任何意圖孤立台灣、切斷其對外聯繫的行動，幾乎必然以海底電纜為目標。這正是本站監測的核心關切。
As an island nation, Taiwan's entire digital connection to the outside world depends almost entirely on submarine cables. Taiwan currently has 14 international submarine cables and 10 domestic cables (connecting outer islands). What they carry isn't just Netflix streams or messaging apps — but Taiwan's semiconductor export orders, financial market data, military communications, and government command systems.
But the issue isn't just outages. Submarine cable repairs are extremely time-consuming — the 2023 Matsu cable incident took nearly 50 days to repair. Global cable repair ships are scarce, and if multiple cables are damaged simultaneously, the repair queue becomes very long indeed.
Strategically, submarine cables are the weakest link in Taiwan's "digital resilience." Any action aimed at isolating Taiwan and cutting off its external connections would almost inevitably target submarine cables. This is precisely the core concern that this monitoring site addresses.
海底電纜不是冷戰時代的遺物——它是 21 世紀最關鍵的基礎設施之一，卻長期缺乏應有的關注與保護。它的重要性體現在三個層次：
正因如此，海底電纜已成為「灰色地帶衝突」的理想目標：破壞效果顯著，但肇事者可以聲稱是「意外」，難以追責。下一篇文章將介紹 AIS 船舶追蹤系統，以及我們如何透過它發現可疑行為。
Submarine cables are not Cold War relics — they're among the most critical infrastructure of the 21st century, yet they have long received insufficient attention and protection. Their importance operates on three levels:
This is precisely why submarine cables have become ideal targets for "gray zone conflict": the damage is significant, but the perpetrator can claim "accident" and avoid accountability. The next article explains the AIS vessel tracking system and how we use it to detect suspicious behavior.
一條跨洋海纜的誕生，靠的是全球數量稀少的佈纜船（cable-laying ship）。這些特製船隻把成千上萬公里的光纖纜捲在巨型纜艙裡，以每小時數浬的慢速沿著事先勘測的路徑釋放。
在水深較淺、漁業與航運繁忙的近岸海域（例如台灣海峽），電纜會以水下犁具開溝掩埋，降低被漁具或船錨勾到的風險；到了深海，因為人為干擾少、掩埋成本高，電纜多半直接平鋪在海床上。
維護則仰賴待命的維修船：偵測到斷點後，維修船駛抵現場，用抓鉤或水下載具把斷纜兩端撈起、接合，再放回海床。全球能執行這項工作的船隊規模不大，且常需跨區調度——這正是為什麼一次斷纜的修復往往以「週」甚至「月」計。
An ocean-crossing cable is born from a globally scarce fleet of cable-laying ships. These specialized vessels coil thousands of kilometers of fiber-optic cable in giant tanks and pay it out at a few knots along a pre-surveyed route.
In shallow, fishing- and shipping-heavy coastal waters (like the Taiwan Strait), cables are ploughed into a trench and buried to reduce the risk of being snagged by fishing gear or anchors; in the deep sea, where human interference is rarer and burial is costly, cables usually lie directly on the seabed.
Maintenance depends on standby repair ships: once a break is located, a repair ship sails to the site, grapples up both severed ends, splices them, and lowers the cable back to the seabed. The worldwide fleet able to do this is small and often must be dispatched across regions — which is why repairing a single break frequently takes weeks, even months.
The concepts on this page can be verified against these public, authoritative sources:
This page is for research and education; detection signals are leads to investigate, not legal or factual findings. See the methodology.