Illustrative: packages on a board with routed traces carrying clocked signals, or a data hall of racks and their status lights

Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium · Course catalogue · Infrastructure, Energy and Industry

Utility Networks

Telecommunications and digital infrastructure

Telecommunications and digital infrastructure, taught twice over: as the working methods of the field and as its frontier since 2024, with labs on the Academy's tools, open data and the Nexus Standards.

Core course Frontier course

The discipline

01Core course · L2 Intermediate

Telecommunications and digital infrastructure: foundations and practice

This area covers the physical networks of the digital economy: access and mobile networks, backbones, subsea cables, internet exchange points and data centres, and their dependence on power, timing and repair capacity.

Level
L2 Intermediate
Study time
about 24 hours (planning estimate)
Status
Planned
Prerequisites
An L1 course in the area, or an entry review

Why now

Repeated subsea cable cuts in the Red Sea (2024) and the Baltic (2024 to 2025) led ITU and the ICPC to set up an International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience in late 2024, while outage observatories now measure national connectivity in near real time. EUR-Lex, Directive (EU) 2022/2555 (NIS2), 2022

Learning outcomes

  1. Define subsea cable and the other key terms of the discipline and use them correctly in a written case
  2. Explain access, mobile and backbone networks and subsea cables, landing stations and repair capacity with a worked example and its source
  3. Apply the discipline's method to a documented case and explain each result with its source
  4. Analyse a named case against internet exchange points and routing, stating evidence, date and limits

Modules

  1. Access, mobile and backbone networks
    • Access, mobile and backbone networks
    • Subsea cables, landing stations and repair capacity
    • Internet exchange points and routing
  2. Data centres, power and cooling
    • Data centres, power and cooling
    • Satellite communications
    • Dependence on power and timing
  3. Network redundancy and route diversity
    • Network redundancy and route diversity
    • Emergency communications
    • Regulation of telecom resilience
  4. Lab: the discipline's method
    • A single route between two points has an availability; physically disjoint routes multiply the chance that one survives; a site's backup power decides whether a grid outage reaches the network at all; and the downtime minutes a year that result are what a service commitment and a regulator count.
    • Work the method through a documented case and explain each result
    • Read the method's sources and stated values

Labs with Academy tools

Open data

Assessment

  • 40%Lab recordWork the discipline's method through a documented case and explain each result with its source and date
  • 40%Case memoApply the discipline's methods to a named place or organisation, stating evidence and limits
  • 20%Key terms checkShort answers on the key terms, marked against the definitions

Delivery

  • Self-paced online, with the labs in the browser
  • Cohort study over six to eight weeks, with a weekly lab review
  • Co-delivered with a partner institution, inside its own courses

Partner on this course

  • Co-teach a module and bring a current case from your work
  • Host a cohort for your learners, with your own schedule and review
  • Contribute a lab: a dataset your institution publishes openly, or a model
  • Review the course content and its references before it opens
  • Translate the course and adapt its cases to your region

How institutions and experts take part

In the Academy LMS

Course on the learning platform
Intermediate, 4 topics
Cohort group
A community group for each cohort of learners
Achievement
Recorded on completion of the assessed work

References

  1. Durairajan et al., InterTubes: a study of the US long-haul fiber-optic infrastructure, 2015
  2. Bueger and Liebetrau, Protecting hidden infrastructure: the security politics of the global submarine data cable network, 2021
  3. Dainotti et al., Analysis of country-wide internet outages caused by censorship, 2011
02Live map

Connected activity in Egypt and the Nile Delta

Night-time lights and population density, the footprint of electrified, connected activity, over Egypt and the Nile Delta.

The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.

Layers 2

Connected activity

Latest available

NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth

Loading the latest NASA imagery.

Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.

Connected activity, framed on Egypt and the Nile Delta.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.

Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONETSources and licences

  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • VIIRS Black Marble night-time lights, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; distributed by the NASA Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University. 2018. Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11. NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). doi:10.7927/H49C6VHW. CC BY 4.0
  • VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
  • Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
  • © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). ODbL
  • Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
  • Globe: MapLibre GL JS 6.9.1, BSD-3-Clause, © MapLibre contributors.
  • Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
  • NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
  • Optional layers (3 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.

Layers and dates

  • Night-time lights, daily: VIIRS Black Marble (VNP46A2), NASA LAADS DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
  • Population density, 2020: Population: CIESIN, Columbia University, Gridded Population of the World v4.11 (2018), NASA SEDAC, CC BY 4.0 · static
  • True colour: VIIRS NOAA-20 corrected reflectance, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026

03How learning runs

How learning runs, as a process you can run

Select a scenario and press Play: course, pathway, practice, faculty, cells and record.

04What is changing

What is changing, with standards and evidence

Telecommunications and digital infrastructure: frontier methods

The methods, data, tools and studies that changed telecommunications and digital infrastructure between 2024 and 2026, taught by reproducing them on open data.

Level
L3 Advanced
Study time
about 28 hours (planning estimate)
Status
Planned
Prerequisites
Telecommunications and digital infrastructure: foundations and practice; Working knowledge of a scripting language (Python or R) for the labs

Why now

Repeated subsea cable cuts in the Red Sea (2024) and the Baltic (2024 to 2025) led ITU and the ICPC to set up an International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience in late 2024, while outage observatories now measure national connectivity in near real time. EUR-Lex, Directive (EU) 2022/2555 (NIS2), 2022

Learning outcomes

  1. Explain what changed in telecommunications and digital infrastructure since 2024 and cite the studies, data or rules behind each change
  2. Reproduce the physical internet on open data and state the uncertainty of the result
  3. Evaluate a 2024 to 2026 study: its question, data, method, limits and what it changes for practice
  4. Design an analysis that combines a frontier method with the faculty's instruments, and justify each choice

Modules

  1. The physical internet
    • Subsea cables, landing stations and repair capacity
    • Internet exchange points and routing (BGP)
    • Satellite broadband constellations as backup
  2. Measuring outages
    • Active and passive measurement (RIPE Atlas, IODA)
    • Attributing an outage: power, cable, shutdown or attack
    • Shutdown documentation and its ethics
  3. Resilience policy
    • NIS2 obligations for digital infrastructure
    • Route diversity and repair-ship planning
    • Interdependence with power and finance
  4. Reproduction lab
    • Extend the discipline's method with one frontier method and compare its results
    • State the uncertainty and the limits of the result
    • Peer review against a shared checklist
  5. Technology that helps and the risks it carries
    • Digital twins, sensors and robotics for inspection.
    • Cascading cyber-physical failure and vendor lock-in.

Labs with Academy tools

Open data

Assessment

  • 50%Method reproductionReproduce one frontier method on open data and state the uncertainty of the result
  • 30%Study reviewA critical review of a 2024 to 2026 study: question, data, method, limits, what it changes
  • 20%Peer reviewReview two other learners' reproductions against a shared checklist

Delivery

  • Self-paced online, with the labs in the browser
  • Cohort study over six to eight weeks, with a weekly lab review
  • Co-delivered with a partner institution, inside its own courses

Partner on this course

  • Co-teach a module and bring a current case from your work
  • Host a cohort for your learners, with your own schedule and review
  • Contribute a lab: a dataset your institution publishes openly, or a model
  • Review the course content and its references before it opens
  • Translate the course and adapt its cases to your region

How institutions and experts take part

In the Academy LMS

Course on the learning platform
Expert, 5 topics
Cohort group
A community group for each cohort of learners
Achievement
Recorded on completion of the assessed work

References

  1. EUR-Lex, Directive (EU) 2022/2555 (NIS2), 2022
  2. ITU, International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience, 2024 to check
  3. Durairajan et al., InterTubes: a study of the US long-haul fiber-optic infrastructure, 2015
  4. Bueger and Liebetrau, Protecting hidden infrastructure: the security politics of the global submarine data cable network, 2021
  5. Dainotti et al., Analysis of country-wide internet outages caused by censorship, 2011
05Take part

Take part in the work

Start from who you are.

06Questions

Questions, answers and key terms

Is the course free?
Yes. Every course and learning material of Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium, is free to study, self-paced or with a cohort. Ordinary participation has no fee; paid work, internships and fellowships are separate arrangements.
What does completing a course give me?
A completion record: the course, its version, the date and what was assessed, private by default and shared by you. It stacks into discipline, department and programme achievements. A record states what was studied and assessed and does not certify competence; it is not a licence, a professional title or an employment status.
Where do the data and the places come from?
Every faculty teaches on a twin of a real place built from open data; each layer carries its provider, licence and date, and every result on the Academy states its source. Maps and figures are indicators for teaching, never an assessment of a place.
How do I take part beyond the course?
Form a competence cell of three to seven people, study a shared pathway, take a supervised assignment in the National Working Groups, or bring a cohort from your institution. For organisations.

Key terms

Term

Subsea cable

A fibre-optic cable laid on the seabed that carries most intercontinental data traffic.

Term

Internet exchange point

A facility where networks interconnect to exchange traffic directly.

Term

Route diversity

Carrying traffic over physically separate paths so that one cut does not stop the service.

Term

Data centre tier

A classification of a data centre's redundancy in power and cooling.

ReportsContribute

Contribute evidence from this page.

Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.

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