Not too long ago I remember the surprise in my wife’s face when I explained how transoceanic cables -big, long, fat pipes running along the bottom of the seas- were responsible for the magical transmission of ones and zeroes that we call the Internet.
Thanks to an article on consolidation of providers by GigaOM I can now show her graphically, too!
These are some of the cables that were reportedly cut/sabotaged in early 2008.
UPDATE: a much better resource here, and here.