ChatterBank6 mins ago
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.Actually, there is a phone line under the sea... it's called the Transatlantic Cable, and it's been carrying communications for over a century. You can read all about its history here: http://www.history-magazine.com/cable.html
But today, we use a more high-tech solution: communications satellites. Most of the information that gets across the pond, and around the rest of the world, gets there by way of wireless satellite relays.
Most of the information you access "from America" will already be in the UK, even though it comes from a 'dot com" address, because it is cached on UK servers. Since more than one person will look at the same info (most likely), and ISPs are all charged for transatlantic (subatlantic?) traffic, it makes sense to keep copies in the UK.
I heard that the Americans were planning on extending the Echelon snoop to tap into the aforementioned Atlantic Cable, by using a submersible device of some kind, and a splice. Don't know if there were any developements on this.
{Hello Mr Bush, you're doing a great job, keepify it up}