Reading — Test 46

Read the text and answer the question.

Deep beneath the Atlantic, a network of undersea cables carries nearly all of the world's internet traffic between continents. These cables, no thicker than a garden hose, rest on the ocean floor and occasionally break when struck by ship anchors or shifting seabeds. When a major cable fails, specialized repair vessels sail to the site, lift the damaged section to the surface, splice in a new piece, and lower it back down. The process can take weeks. Because so much data depends on these fragile lines, most regions are served by several cables at once, so a single break rarely cuts off an entire country.